


Fox Country, Episode 2

by evil_whimsey



Series: Fox Country [2]
Category: Blackbird (Ouran AU)
Genre: Arai is Something Else, Mori is The Hermit, Mori talks to ghosts, Multi, Oh look there's a pear orchard, and gets bossed by a water spirit, magical forest au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-27
Updated: 2017-03-15
Packaged: 2018-05-09 15:49:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 46
Words: 155,466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5545844
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/evil_whimsey/pseuds/evil_whimsey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The continuing adventures of Hermit Mori and his friends, about 8 months after the end of Episode One.  This is where the story really gets started.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

Prologue

In early spring, there came a series of days when the fox's attention was caught by some mysterious particular thing outside. It would leave Mori sitting on the porch, or preparing lunch in the kitchen, or climbing into bed, and trot outside across the grass, where it stood for several minutes with its ears perked, and its head cocked toward the eastern hills. It never seemed to notice Mori coming to stand next to it, until he asked, "What is it?"

The fox would stare into the distance a while longer, and then shake itself, the way it did after a roll in the dirt. Then it would sit and look up at Mori, and thump its tail on the ground twice, or blink and huff at him, or stretch its chops in a yawn.

"Yes?" Mori would prompt, but whatever had caught the fox's attention seemed to have passed.

As the winter snows melted and the trees unfurled their delicate spring raiment, the incidents grew more frequent. For the most part, the fox was his constant shadow everywhere; following alongside on Mori's walks through the forest and around the cottage property, sitting sentry at the door when Mori was in the bath or the kitchen, curling up behind Mori's knees in bed on cold nights. And then for no reason that Mori could discern, the fox periodically stopped in its tracks, and stood alert. Listening for something Mori couldn't hear, and sniffing at the air. 

Each time, Mori paused alongside the fox, and eventually asked what had its interest, and each time the fox turned--reluctantly, Mori began to feel--and focused on him instead.

Finally one day, Mori decided he would simply wait, and see what might happen if he didn't intrude. It was a fine bright afternoon, and they'd just reached a clearing atop a thickly wooded hill. The fox had pulled up short and pricked its ears, facing east as always, and this time Mori backed silently toward a short boulder in the shade, and sat down to wait.

He watched the fox's ears flick and swivel, and its black nose tip to the breeze. Then eventually it wandered a few tentative steps forward, twitching the tip of its tail. Minutes passed, and the fox edged ever closer to the far end of the clearing, creeping carefully, the same way it sometimes stalked after crickets on the porch at home. Mori smiled faintly, thinking he might get to see it pounce, but it never did.

Instead, it stretched its neck forward as far as it could, snuffling at the shadows under the high trees. It turned a quick circle, then scratched at the ground, where the outer edge of shade fell.

A high, soft whine carried across the clearing, but apparently, the fox would go no further. At that point, Mori stood and crossed over.

"If you want to go see what's out there, go ahead," he said quietly.

The fox sat and snuffled out a breath, still staring into the trees.  
"Do you want me to go with you?" Mori tried. By way of answer, the fox swiped its front foot down its muzzle; the same gesture it used when Mori offered foods it didn't care for. So Mori took that for a 'no'.

He felt certain the fox wouldn't go investigate the anomaly it seemed so taken with, for the same reason it no longer ran off for half a day or so, exploring on its own, or darted out of sight from the forest trails, chasing after birds and woodchucks and butterflies. And while Mori had to admit he felt easier, knowing the fox was safe nearby, he also worried, increasingly. That somehow in the course of their companionship, he'd tamed the fox to heel, dominated its own inclinations to suit him, deprived it of its liberty.

He hunkered down next to the fox. "You know I would wait for you. If you want to go."  
The fox sat still, watching the forest for something beyond Mori's reckoning.

"Even if it took a long time," Mori offered. "You've always been free to come or go, if you want."

At that, the fox turned and looked over its shoulder at him. It was a solemn, intelligent look that made Mori feel inexplicably solemn himself.  
"It would take a long time, wouldn't it," he guessed.

After a long moment, the fox stood and padded toward him, planted its front feet on his kneecaps and looked eye-to-eye with him. It studied him gravely, and as Mori studied back, he found his solemnity turning to something else. Something he wasn't sure he wanted to examine too closely.

 _Let's go home,_ he suddenly wanted to say. _Let's have dinner and read on the porch until dark. I'll catch fireflies for you. We'll stay out as long as you want._

But it was a selfish, selfish suggestion. And a leash you couldn't see was no better than one you could. No matter how much he loved the fox, he had known all along that he had no right to keep it tied to him.

"I'll miss you," he said, before he could change his mind, and pressed a kiss to the fox's forehead, where it smelt of woodsmoke and forest earth and warm fur. "But I will wait for you at home."

The fox answered with a sharp whine, and pushed at his knee with its forepaws until Mori shifted and knelt, letting the fox climb into his lap and his arms. He buried his face in its soft coat and stroked its back. "Be careful," he said, and the fox answered with a shuddering sigh. 

He kissed its ear, and the backs of his eyes prickled and though his heart ached, he whispered, "Don't forget, okay?"

 

True to his word, Mori waited. But he never saw the fox again after that day.

 

The seasons passed and he tended his garden and his trees, and his vegetable patch with the same care as always. But his heart was heavy, and as the days became weeks, and summer drew toward its end, his optimism dwindled. 

He prayed every day that wherever the fox had gone, it was happy and safe, and getting plenty to eat. Most of all, he hoped it wasn't so lonely as he was, in his empty cottage. Making his meals and tea for one, sitting alone on his porch in the evenings while the fireflies danced. Laying in his bed at night listening for the click of toenails in the other room, or an inquisitive nose snuffling into the corners. Listening until the persistent empty hush all around him settled in, pressing on his chest.

Only in his lowest moments, in the deepest dark of night, did he regret the choice he'd made. But he wouldn't give up waiting. Not for the rest of his life, even if it was hopeless. He would sooner ache with loneliness forever, than forget a single moment with his dearest friend.

Now and then, Mori would return to the clearing where he and the fox had last been together. He'd leave rice balls and strawberries, and a shallow bowl of tea, just in case the fox should come back the way it had left. He did the same at other spots they'd visited on their walks and then, reasoning that it wasn't unlike making a temple offering, where one sometimes left petitions and requests to the spirits, he began leaving small notes as well.

 _I'm still waiting_ , he would write. _Come home safely_. Sometimes the notes would blow away, or a heavy rain would dissolve the fine rice paper altogether. So Mori began carving his message on flat palm-sized river stones, and leaving those instead. 

Once, he pictured himself far in the future, when he was an old hermit. How people might remember him as a harmless eccentric who built shrines to a fox, all over the mountains.

He very nearly smiled at the thought. There were worse things to be, he supposed.

 

**

Mori tried to keep to his ordinary routine, but as the summer waned, everything began to take immense effort. Lifting his arms to work, moving his legs forward; it all exhausted him past imagining. He felt a constant hollow heaviness, like something was always sinking inside him, yet it never seemed to find a bottom.

Telling himself it might be an illness, that it would probably soon pass, Mori took his bushel of pears to the cold cellar, so they'd keep until he could manage the trip down to the village market. One day faded into another, and he was adding a second bushel, then a third, and then his crop of early autumn vegetables came ripe, and he had to make room for them too. The way things were going, it would all spoil before he could bring his goods to market, but it was difficult enough just stepping off his porch in the mornings; he couldn't even imagine a day-long trip to a town full of people. Lying in bed with his head pillowed on the fox's favorite blanket wouldn't do him much good in the long run, but for many days it was all Mori really cared to do.

**


	2. Chapter 2

One night, after the grating, pressing silence had kept him tossing and turning into the small hours, Mori had a dream. He dreamt he was back in that clearing in the forest, where he'd last held the fox and spoke to it, before it trotted off into the woods and out of sight. 

Approaching the same spot where he'd knelt that day, he found himself conspicuously empty-handed, and felt a guilty, sinking disappointment. After neglecting this place for more than a fortnight, he'd shown up without any food or tea to leave for the fox. 

There was nothing he could do about it now, though; he'd just have to make another trip later on. At least he could check and see if the....

But it wasn't there. Mori searched all around, sweeping aside pine needles and leaf litter, but the stone he'd left, with his message for the fox, it was gone. His sweeping uncovered nothing but a small smooth-sided square of wood. 

Where had his stone gone? Could someone have taken it? He picked up the wood square, curious, and turned it over between his fingers. 

It was a mah-jong tile. Engraved on one side with the character for the East Wind.

 

He awakened late in the morning. Still tired, still listless and sinking inside. And on top of that, because he should've gone to the village market days and days ago, his larder was just about bare. But that dream troubled him more than the state of his provisions at the moment. Letting his harvest go to waste was bound to cause him untold trouble for the winter, but letting himself descend so far into melancholy that he gave up his proofs of hope seemed far worse. It was too much like going back on his promise to the fox, and Mori's conscience pricked him.

He shouldn't wait any longer. He would have to go to the village in the next day or so, but first he would go and visit as many of the sites where he'd been leaving food and messages as he could.

**

As it happened, that day was perfect for walking. The air was crisp, the sky was flawless deep blue, and the trees were just starting to show their autumn hues. Preparing for the hike hadn't been easy; it seemed to take forever to get his clothes and walking boots on, and pack a knapsack with food and tea for offerings. But once he was out on the familiar trails, and his legs found their old steady rhythm, Mori thought the intolerable heaviness he'd been enduring might be lifting somewhat. Picking up his feet, holding his head up, breathing in and out; it seemed it was taking less effort than he'd been accustomed to lately.

It was early in the afternoon, when he'd stepped off the trail to rest and admire a striking gold aspen, shimmering among its greener fellows out in a small sunny meadow. It was impossible to be entirely downhearted, he felt, when there were still views like this to come upon. And as Mori stood there, simply appreciating the beauty of it, a very quiet understanding rippled through him like a tiny drop of water on a wide, still pool.

Some day, eventually, he would feel better. Some day, he wouldn't carry this hurt all the time, wherever he went. This tender wound in the center of him, this constant twinge of missingness, it would ease some day. His bed would not feel so cold, his cottage wouldn't feel forsaken anymore. Some day, he might even be used to the quiet again.

A breeze came along, making the tree tops sigh and the aspens shiver, and Mori drew it in on a long deep breath. Then he jogged his knapsack higher up on his shoulders, ready to walk on.

Glancing back to the one gold-glimmering tree, his eye caught a flash of russet in the high grasses off to the side. Taking it for a cardinal, he paused a second. The grass waved in the wind, and the reddish patch moved. Too big to be a bird, he mused, before the other possibility winged out of nowhere and jolted him.

He didn't spare one instant of thought, just rushed headlong for that patch of thick grass, nearly as high as his chest. His mouth was open and his hands reached out, as he dodged through the underbrush. But his brain couldn't settle on a single coherent word, and his throat had clenched almost too tight for air.

He hit a spread of ankle-high juniper, crashed half through it and almost went keeling over. The rustling in the grass abruptly stopped, and so did Mori.   
He mustn't scare it off. He didn't dare get his hopes up. He should say something. God, he should _breathe_....

"Hey. Is somebody there?" came a tentative voice from the high grass. Mori's arms dropped to his sides. He stared. "Hello?" 

It sounded like a boy. Or a young man, at least. Mori was distantly surprised he could tell, over the noise of his heart thumping against the back of his throat.

"If you're a bear or something, I'll let you have all my food. It's cool. I'd just rather not get mauled." Mori registered a high edge of nerves in that statement, and belatedly it filtered through that his own silence was partly to blame.

"I've never seen bears here," he said, after a hard swallow, and the grass went very still and quiet.

"There are raccoons," he offered, after thinking it through. "And wild boars, sometimes."  
"Bo--boars?" said the grass.  
"Hm." 

Mori watched the grass to see what it would do next. The encounter was so peculiar thus far, that he had quite forgotten what sent him stumbling over in the first place.

"You're not--um--a hunter, are you?"  
"No," said Mori. "I fish sometimes." He thought it safe to assume that someone who was timid over the possibility of bears and boars wasn't a hunter, either. His guess was that this was a city dweller who'd lost their way on a hike. Someone from the village would have known to stick to the paths in the forest.

"It's safe to come out," he said. "I won't make trouble for you."  
The grass rustled and shuffled some.

"I dunno." It sounded reluctant, now. "I wasn't supposed to talk to strangers. Nothing personal."  
Mori considered this. "We're talking now." It earned him a rueful chuckle.  
"Yeah. Guess I kinda screwed that up."

"I'm called Morinozuka," he offered. "And if you're--." The grass agitated suddenly, revealing swatches of reddish-brown and the vague shape of a person.  
"Hold on. You're the farmer Morinozuka?"

Mori frowned. He wasn't a farmer _per se_. "I grow a few vegetables," he allowed. "And pears."

"You're that guy, then!" An arm flailed out of the grass, parting it, then a thatch of untidy brown hair poked through, and finally a young man emerged, with a grin as pure and bright as the afternoon sun. 

"Man, I didn't think I was ever gonna find you," he beamed, and Mori couldn't say what unbalanced him more. Whether it was the sudden wattage of that smile, or the equally bright eyes blinking at him, or this wholly unexpected greeting from a complete stranger.

"You were looking for me?"  
"Yeah, I was--oh, hold on--." He turned to wrestle a hefty looking canvas duffel from the grass, grunting with the effort. Mori offered to help, as the young man lugged it forward, but he only grinned. "Nah, I'm good." 

He was dressed in rugged work clothes, and the russet Mori had first spotted was the color of his woolen overshirt. It might have been red at one time, but years of washing had faded the color, and frayed the edges of the collar. The shirt was a few sizes too big for his frame, as were his trousers; he had the bottoms rolled up, and his shirt sleeves were turned in thick cuffs up to his elbows.

"I must be lucky," he was saying. "Thought for sure I'd gotten lost again. Didn't see any of the landmarks the old man told me about. Guess I just ended up going the right way by accident."

Mori couldn't help wondering whether the young man might be a bit simple. Not that he seemed especially dim-witted, it was just that Mori had never met anyone so cheerful after having been lost in the forest. Though maybe it was simply relief at finally meeting someone.

"You came from the village?"  
"Yeah, Hito--from the market--he sent me to bring you some stuff. To see if you wanted to trade again, this year?"

If the young man had come from the village hoping to find Mori at home, Mori was going to say he'd been very lost, indeed. There was no telling where he might have ended up, had Mori not chanced to come along. But then there was the matter of the old man from the village market, sending him gifts apparently, reminding Mori that he had a whole cellar full of goods to offer back, and the sooner the better.

Remembering his manners, Mori bowed. "It was very gracious of you to come so far. And I must thank Hito-sama for his generosity."  
"So you do want to trade, then?"  
"I should have made a trip last week," Mori confessed. "There's more in my cellar than I can carry, now."  
"That's no problem. I can help you out." The young man glanced around. "Where's your cellar at?"

"Ah. It's that way." Mori pointed back over his shoulder. "About an hour."  
That friendly grin slowly faded, as he stared the direction Mori had pointed. "Oh." Then he turned and looked back past the aspens, where he'd presumably come from, with his forehead crinkling in a frown. 

"Oh wow. I was really lost."

"I'm sorry." Feeling sympathetic to his predicament, Mori added, "You're welcome to stay overnight with me. It's much longer back to the village from here."

The young man turned his frown to the ground between them. "I shouldn't impose." His sturdy walking shoes actually did seem to fit him, Mori noticed. And unlike his worn oversized clothes, they looked brand-new. The discrepancy was interesting.

"It's not imposing," he said. "I have plenty of room." And hopefully just enough food. "It really is unwise, to travel in the forest after dark." Particularly for people who got lost in broad daylight, he didn't add.

The young stranger looked off to the trees, wavering. "If you're sure it's no trouble. But Hito told me not to be a nuisance." His expression suggested the old man had been most emphatic on this point too, and Mori nearly felt the urge to smile. 

"It's only one night. I can show you the way back to the village, first thing tomorrow."

**


	3. Chapter 3

There wasn't much talking between them on the way back to Mori's property. Although he wouldn't say the quiet was awkward, particularly. His companion seemed to content to march along at his side, with his duffel slung over his back, looking around at the trees, and the few open meadows they passed. Now and then he would drop pace, gazing at a particularly vivid maple, or unusual boulder along the path. Once, he stopped altogether, blinking at a large yellow butterfly, swooping and fluttering up over a tangle of underbrush.

It was little wonder the young man had gotten lost, given how easily enchanted he seemed by the least things. And for some reason, that made Mori smile to himself. After all, it wasn't as though they were in any hurry. And since the fox's departure, he'd had no company at all in the woods, or anywhere else. He was at leisure to appreciate the novel experience of seeing someone new to these surroundings, which were as familiar to Mori as his own vegetable patch by now.

A little past the halfway point to home, Mori stepped off the path, toward a large flat rock, overlooking a drop into a deep forested valley.  
"We can take a rest here," he told the young man, who nodded, and muscled his duffel up on the rock, before climbing up next to him.

Mori opened his pack, and found the thermos, with a little tea left, one large leftover rice ball, and the last pear. It had occurred to him, some distance back, that if the stranger had been lost most of the day, he likely hadn't eaten in all that time.

He shook his head though, looking worried, when Mori offered him the food. "No, I couldn't take your lunch."  
"I already had lunch," Mori said. "This is extra. Go ahead, it's all right."

But the young man would only agree to take some, if they split it and shared. So Mori pulled the rice ball apart, and offered half, and pretended not to notice as his companion put visible effort into not wolfing down the entire piece in one bite. In spite of his shabby appearance (Mori would bet anything those worn, baggy clothes were hand-me-downs), the young had clearly been taught to mind his manners. Maybe he was from a good family, who had fallen on hard times. Or perhaps he was an orphan, taken in by relatives. If he had grown up somewhere else, and been brought recently to the village, that would explain his unfamiliarity with the forest.

Mori considered the possibilities, chewing on his rice, and gazing out over the dark tangle of the evergreen forest in the valley below, his eye straying over the red blaze of maples, bright gold aspens, and yellow ash, dotting the mountainsides. He was aware of the young man surreptitiously licking his fingers, and predicted that their combined appetites would empty his larder, at dinner tonight.

It was a lucky thing Hito had sent him with that duffel, he figured, as he pulled out his camping knife to halve his pear.

"These are your pears?" The young man exclaimed over his half. Though he was surely still hungry, he appeared more interested in studying the fruit than eating it. "Everyone in the market has been talking about these. One guy keeps trying to buy crates ahead of time." He looked the pear over, top and bottom, keeping his palm cupped to catch the drips off the pale cut flesh.

"They're not ornamental," Mori pointed out. "It's all right to eat."

The young man glanced up at him, surprised, and then smiled back. "I've got to enjoy it, though. They'll go quick, once we get them to town." Then he took a bite, stilled and closed his eyes. "Mm--." He savored the bite, for several long seconds, while Mori looked on, bemused. 

He knew many people in the village were enthusiasts for his pears; with that one crop alone, he was able to trade for most of the goods he needed from town for the year. But he'd never seen anyone so thoroughly abandon themselves to a single bite, like this.

On the other hand, if this young man was indeed disadvantaged, maybe he wasn't offered many treats. After all, he'd appeared to think this one half of a fruit might be all he'd get to try. And his next words supported that theory.

"Amazing," he breathed, discreetly wiping his chin with his fingers. "I never had anything so good."

For some inexplicable reason, Mori was deeply touched by that artless praise. He knew there were a vast number of greater delicacies than pears, no matter how good these were. In his early life, before he'd come to live alone on the mountain, he'd tried many of the finest foods the world had to offer. But he didn't think he'd ever appreciated a single one of them, so much as this unusual stranger seemed to appreciate the modest home-grown fruit in his hands.

On impulse, he offered the young man all the pears he wanted, when they got back to the cottage. "I have bushels of them," he said, when the young man looked at him doubtfully. "And several trees that still haven't ripened."

"But you're not supposed to eat the profits. Hito told me that, when I was minding the bread stand."

"I never make a profit," Mori shrugged. "I just trade for what I need. If there's no one to give them to, a lot go to waste."

"Oh." The young man's frown changed shape, as he weighed Mori's reasoning. "Well. They shouldn't go to waste."

**

The rest of the trip went uneventfully, after Mori had convinced the young man to let him carry the duffel the rest of the way, in exchange for his hiking pack. After all, he explained, what with getting lost and coming back in from another direction, he had easily carried the goods twice the distance he'd been expected to. What Mori did not mention, was that the young man's steps had been lagging under the duffel's weight--though it was clear he tried doggedly to keep up--and Mori wanted to make the cottage before sunset.

It wasn't until they were in sight of his cottage, that Mori realized something.

"I'm sorry, I haven't asked your name."  
The young man scuffed to a halt on the path. "Oh! I was supposed to introduce myself!" He bobbed off a quick bow. "Sorry, I totally forgot. I'm called Arai."

"The produce vendor," Mori noted. He'd dealt with that man often, on his trips to town. "You're not his son, by chance?" The man he knew was a very decent, fair sort of person, but so far as Mori had known, the elder Arai had lived all his life in the village, and was never married.

"No, I just stay with him. So that's what everybody calls me. Except him. He calls me 'Kid'."

"Kid?"  
"He's a really good guy. He got me these shoes--brand new, see?" The young man tugged up his cuffed pant leg proudly, to show Mori the top of his sturdy footwear. "So I could come up here, and hike around and stuff."

Mori dutifully nodded over the young man's--Arai's--new hiking shoes, and tried to assimilate the wealth of information he'd unwittingly prompted. Which on second thought, raised more questions than it answered.

"That's your house?" Arai craned up on tiptoe, taking in the long slope of the clearing. "Lotta trees, wow. I can't even see your neighbors."  
Mori shrugged. "That's because they're in the next valley."  
"What?"  
"My closest neighbor is down by the river. A half-hour from here."

"But....you're all by yourself here?" For a second, Arai looked as if he might actually pity Mori. There was probably an irony somewhere in that, but Mori wasn't that inclined to examine it. Nor was he inclined to explain the truth; this place had its share of company, just not the sort Arai was thinking of. It wasn't a discussion Mori cared to get into, with someone of such brief acquaintance.

"I like the quiet," he said.

**

 

Once inside the cottage, Mori set the duffel on the bench in the entryway, and bent to remove his shoes. Arai, watching closely, did the same, lining his own shoes up straight, next to Mori's. He handled them carefully, Mori saw, with a little frown for a slight scuff on the left toe.

It was only when they filed into his front room proper, that Mori recalled what a long time it had been since he had guests. The polished wood floor was clean, but the corners were dusty, and he hadn't dragged out his rugs and mats for a good beating since....well, since early summer.

Fortunately, his visitor didn't seem terribly fastidious. Arai looked around the room with wide eyes, taking in the windows, the ceiling beams, the squat black wood stove in the far corner, and the single low table. The setting sun threw a wash of heavy gold light across the room, picking out deep tones in the wood and warming the walls.

"Really nice place," Arai commented, ducking to check the view out one of the windows. The sun caught his hair, briefly lending it a dark bronze glow. "It seems comfortable here. Peaceful."

Mori nodded. "I should put on the lamps, before it gets dark."


	4. Chapter 4

Dinner was essentially the remainder of his provisions, cooked together in a stewpot. Rice, some cured meat, with various fall vegetables. He found a jar of pickled cucumber and radish at the back of cabinet, and sniffed the contents, before deciding it could make a side garnish.

"That smells great," Arai enthused, peeking into the kitchen. "Can I help with anything?"  
"It's almost done," Mori told him, sorting out the utensils, and a pair of matching bowls. "I'm sorry it's not much. I should have restocked a while ago."

"No, I've imposed way too much already. Please don't go to any trouble." He followed Mori back to the front room, with his hands clasped before him. "You sure I can't do anything to help?"

Mori shook his head, and gestured for Arai to take a seat on one of the table cushions. "I'll bring tea, and then dinner should be ready soon."

He was carrying the tea tray in, and hoping the spare bedding in his closet wouldn't be too musty, since he hadn't aired it in so long, when Arai --looking past the table, toward the wood stove-- suddenly brightened.

"Oh, you have a pet!"

The grief struck Mori like a sucker-punch, shocking the breath out of him. 

For the first time in weeks, he stared at the cushion by the wood box, where his favorite blue sweater, with its fine coating of reddish-gold fur, was still folded. He'd left it because he couldn't bear to move it, and had blinded himself to it, because he couldn't bear to look.

When the pears had come ripe at the end of summer, on the day Mori gathered his first bushel, he'd remembered the games of last fall: the fox happily crunching into the fallen pears, and the pure delight in its grin, as it bounded through the orchard. 

Unexpectedly, the memory had made his eyes sting and smart, and before he knew it, he was on his knees, his basket tumbled over, pressing back tears with the heels of his hands. Whispering, _I'm sorry, forgive me,_ over and over. 

All the hours and days and weeks had swamped over him, and he'd never known anything could hurt so much; he thought he would surely break. It was a terrible, ignoble weakness, but his only consolation, as he choked and wept, was that no one need ever know. He was all alone.

Maybe on some primitive, childish level, he'd believed the fox could come back, as long as its bed was there. That if it came back, he'd want it to see how he had kept everything just so, for its sake. Because he'd believed.

But now it was a landmine for him, triggered by the innocent notice of a stranger.

His hands tremored, and the teacups hit the table with a dead-sounding thunk. How had he forgotten? How had he let his guard down, against the loss he'd been drowning in for months?

"I--I said the wrong thing." Arai's contrition filtered through Mori's daze, and his first graceless, unworthy reaction was, _Yes. Yes you did._

He stared fixedly at his hands, gripping the teacups, fingertips and knuckles blooming yellow-white. What was he doing? What business did he have, taking in a stranger, when he couldn't even look after himself?

"Sorry. I didn't mean to offend. I didn't--. Sorry."

From the corner of his eye, Mori registered the young man's hunched posture, the hands fisted on his knees. _I'm making him suffer. Because I'm suffering._ The understanding was slow to sink in, but it was just enough to needle Mori's conscience awake. 

This wasn't right. This wasn't how he treated people. He forced his fingers to loosen from the teacups. Drew in a slow breath around the clenching in his throat.

It was just for a night. Surely he could push his hurt down enough to be civilized to a guest, for one night.

"It's all right. I'm not offended." His voice came out rougher than he would've liked, and perhaps not all that convincing, but he had to start somewhere.

He concentrated on keeping his hands steady, pouring out tea for the both of them, and then rose and counted his steps back to the kitchen, where he turned off the stove and ladled the stew into one bowl, and then the other. 

Before leaving the kitchen, he paused a moment with his head down, palms flat on the countertop, and prayed for enough composure to get him through the evening. 

Though on his return to the front room, he wondered whether it might take more than a hurried prayer could earn him. Arai sat in the same position Mori had left him in, staring down at the table, cheeks flushed with shame. And as bruised and unhappy as Mori felt, the sight roused his compassion. 

He went and knelt at the table, set down their soup bowls, and sighed.

"I had a friend," he attempted. "He lived here for awhile. He always used to sleep on that sweater, so I gave it to him." If he thought about it like a story. If he divorced it from all his memories; the dark amber eyes, the perked and flicking ears, the nudge of a whiskered muzzle against his palm.....if he shut all that out, and only thought about the simplest facts. Maybe he could get through this.

Arai flicked a timid glance at Mori, then raised his eyes to the cushion across the room. "A friend," he said softly.

"Yes. A fox."

Arai turned and blinked at him. "A fox lived with you? Really?"

"A hunter's hounds chased him here. I let him in to hide. And he stayed." Then Mori added, because it was important, "I never locked him in. He chose to stay."

"Oh." Arai dutifully nodded understanding, despite the dozen or more questions turning behind his eyes. Completely guileless, Mori realized. Either he had never learned to conceal what he was thinking, or he was simply incapable of it. His eyes, his expressions, gave away every thought. In other circumstances, Mori might have found that interesting. As it was, he was tired, hungry, and wanted to be done with questions for the time being.

"The food should be cool enough by now," he said, handing over one of the spoons he'd brought. "I hope it came out all right."

"Thank you," Arai murmured, bowing his head, before looking up at Mori, straight and sober. "Really, thanks for helping me out. You didn't have to. But I appreciate it."

Unsure how to answer, Mori simply nodded. He wouldn't have left anyone stranded in those woods, nor let them go hungry, when he had food to share. Such an idea was beyond his comprehension. Of course he'd had to help.

Maybe this young man had met people who thought otherwise. Or maybe he just didn't take anything for granted. Mori had certainly been there before. After a lot of risks and hard work, he was largely self-sufficient now, and he preferred that. But he hadn't forgotten was it had been like, before, when he didn't have a choice.

They passed the meal in silence mainly, both of them too tired and perhaps still a little too unsure of one another to talk comfortably. Mori remembered the problem with being a host, was that it was incumbent on him to make conversation. But honestly he was too wrung out to think of a pleasant topic, and out of practice besides.

"I hope you don't mind if I turn in soon," he said, once the food was gone, and Arai had turned down the offer of anything more. "But I'd like to get an early start tomorrow."

"Yeah, long day", Arai agreed, around a stifled yawn. "Sorry. Is it okay if I sleep on this floor? Or do you want me outside?"

Mori thought he hid his startlement rather well. How _had_ this person been raised?   
"I have a spare futon...." And to forestall any further debate about bother and inconvenience, he headed straight off to fetch the bedding, adding over his shoulder, "It gets cold here at night. You don't want to get sick from exposure."

 

As far as he remembered, Mori didn't dream that night. Though he did wake up once, roused by the thrashing of quilts and quiet muttering, in the next room. First he thought it was an intruder, and then he worried a ghost had decided to wander in. 

But it was just Arai, who was apparently a restless sleeper. The noise wasn't particularly loud, and didn't persist for long, and once Mori had reasoned it out, in his muzzy, half-awake state, he was able to ignore it afterward.

**

"Morinozuka-san, is it okay if I ask something?"

They'd been hiking side by side down the forest path for some time, when Arai spoke up. He'd been looking pensive for awhile, Mori had noticed. Watching their surroundings with a certain distance in his gaze, and a faint frown.

"What is it?"

For several steps, Arai stayed quiet, his frown deepening slightly. "I just wondered....I mean, if you don't want to talk about it, just tell me it's none of my business. It really isn't. But....."

"....But?" Mori prompted after a bit, curious now.  
"Could I ask what your friend, the fox, was named?"

Mori's pace faltered at the unexpected subject. There had been no further mention of the fox, either the night before or this morning, and he'd assumed Arai had understood it was a sensitive matter.

And actually, he did understand. It was clear by the stammering approach to the question, and the quick, tentative glances Mori was getting now. So then why had he brought it up? It wasn't that Mori was upset about it; he'd been thinking about the fox for most of the hike, and so unlike last night, he was somewhat prepared.

But of all the things Arai could have risked his displeasure to ask, why that?

"It's okay," Arai said, misreading his silence. "We don't have to talk about it. Sorry. That was dumb."

"If he had a name, I didn't learn it," Mori answered. "And I didn't think it was my place to give him one." He gave a little shrug. "What if he didn't like it?"

Arai glanced at him, puzzled, but hesitant, and it took several steps before he ventured out with his next question. 

"Didn't you need a name, to call him?"  
"Not really. Who else would I be talking to?" 

"Oh. Yeah. Good point." Though it seemed he grasped the logic, Arai's frown persisted awhile. To the point that Mori expected there would be further questions, once Arai had worked them out. But on the topic of the fox, and names, no more questions came.

 

Much later, Mori would reflect that the problem with carrying on after a loss, such as he'd had, was that it obstructed one's view of the bigger picture. He was too focused on the fox, and the ache of missing it--sometimes faint, sometimes overpowering, but always there--to really consider Arai's question from Arai's point of view. He had wondered why the boy had asked, but he hadn't pursued it then. He was stuck in the orbit of his own hurt, and how personally the subject affected him, and didn't bother to look any further.

If he'd been in a clearer frame of mind, if he'd been able to step back from himself, and the tangle of his own feelings, he might have reached a rather important conclusion. He might have remembered what he'd been told, only the day before.

"...So that's what everybody calls me....he calls me 'Kid'."

The question of names was important, to the young man nicknamed after his guardian. But Mori missed his opportunity to find out why.


	5. Chapter 5

It was maybe a week after the young man from the village had spent the night, that Mori was hailed by the dead foreigner in the forest. He didn't recognize her as a ghost at first, maybe because her dress and manner were so strange to begin with, that her most fundamental difference failed to register with him.

He'd been taking a shortcut, from a meadow where he'd found a healthy crop of chestnuts the year before, across to one of the better-traveled forest paths, roughly a half-hour from the village. He had his gathering basket slung over his shoulders, laden with chestnuts, and the last fern-shoots he was liable to find until summer. 

The sun was just edging toward the top of a clear blue sky, and the air was touched with the scent of frost on the way, sharp in his nose and lungs. He was thinking about socks, of all things. Whether it might be worth trading half the morels he'd been storing, for some of the warm-looking woolly socks he'd seen in the village general store, on his last trip. He could always keep darning the socks he had, but the ones he'd seen had looked especially comfortable, and--

"Hallo, sir? I do beg your pardon...."  
Jerked out of his musings, Mori halted on the path, looking around for the speaker.  
"So sorry, I'm just over here, to your left."

Mori couldn't imagine how he'd missed her in passing. She stood fifteen paces off, in a stand of high grasses, under the shade of a yellow beech. Her dress was silk, peacock blue; cinched tight around the waist, and belling outward toward the ground. Her hair was pale brown, like weak tea, and she wore a hat the same vivid blue as her dress, with a feather sticking out.

"Yes, hello, terribly sorry for troubling you--," the woman waved, and Mori saw she wore tan leather gloves, and had a white parasol hanging from one wrist. "I only wondered if I might ask a favor?"

She spoke fluently enough, but her peculiar inflection suggested she wasn't speaking her native language. Mori stepped to the edge of the path, cautiously, so they wouldn't have to shout.

"Good morning," he bowed. "Do you need assistance?"  
Her laugh was light, though he couldn't say it was particularly pleasant. "Well. I suppose one could say...." She lifted her chin and paused, apparently choosing to discard the start she'd made. "Ah, that is. You wouldn't by chance be an acquaintance of Lord Hikimara?"

"I'm sorry, but I don't know that name," Mori answered honestly.  
"Oh. Then perhaps you know the Viscount? Gregor Heinrich, is that person familiar to you?"

"I'm afraid I know very few people here," Mori told her. "I'm not close to the village, and don't visit often. But if you're lost...."

Again the woman laughed, a soft and faintly bitter chuckle. "No sir, not precisely. I was looking for something I'd lost, earlier. But I've been unable to locate it, and I fear my brother and his friends are worrying where I've gone."

"Then can I escort you to the village? Someone there should be able to contact your brother."  
"Ah. That is awfully kind of you." The woman turned, looking off toward the main path, and sighed. "But I daresay it wouldn't do any good now." 

She took a step forward and lurched, and thinking she was falling, Mori rushed forward to help. But then halfway there his eye was caught by a steely gleam at hem of her dress, previously hidden by the grass and he skidded to a halt, stricken with an uncontrollable shudder at what he saw.

The bear trap had caught her left leg, halfway up to the knee. Her skirt was bunched and torn, and the bright silk was stained a thick and spreading black, just as if someone had spilled a whole jar of ink, all the way down to the hem.

No wonder she had laughed like that. He could scarcely imagine a more awful or more tortuous way to die. It was a wonder she hadn't gone insane.

"...So you see...," she murmured, as though summing up a bit of quiet conversation.

"I'm so sorry," Mori said hoarsely, feeling faint. It had been quite awhile since he'd seen the ghost of someone who'd died violently. He didn't think he'd ever get used to it.

"We were on a countryside excursion. From the Viscount's summer estate. I was sketching flowers, and must have wandered farther than I realized. And then I lost my sketchbook." She gazed about the clearing with a confused air, and Mori experienced a wave of forlornness in the ghostly chill rolling toward him now. 

The chances he'd be able to locate what she'd lost--if she herself didn't know where it was--were incredibly slim. Most likely, the book had been dissolved by the elements, or else torn to scraps by animals since her death. And he honestly wasn't certain he could manage a search for her bodily remains. Finding them would mean a trip to the village authorities, who would then interview him as a witness. The death of a foreign woman--a lady of means, going by all the evidence--was the kind of news that traveled far, and with Mori's name attached, his quiet life of anonymity, his safety here, would cease to exist.

But there was another side to the situation. The way this woman had died; he wouldn't wish that on any living creature. Merely contemplating the trap spoke to an unthinkable possibility, murmuring at the dark outer edge of his consciousness.

_What if he hasn't come back, because he can't? What if he..._

All along, Mori had steadfastly refused to complete that thought. He must not--even for one instant--let himself imagine that. Because if he thought it, it could be possible. It could be something that had happened to the fox, while Mori was waiting, and then grieving. Too far away to prevent it, or lend aid when it was most needed.

And if he pictured it. If he finished that _What if...,_ allowed it to take the least shape in his comprehension, it would never stop haunting his nightmares. 

It was enough to make him want to help this ghost, inasmuch as he might be able. Surely her family and friends had waited and mourned, as he had. And though the worst possible end had come in her case, they would want to know she had eventually found comfort, and was resting in peace. Perhaps they could make their own peace, knowing that someone had cared, and done what they could for her.

"I can't promise I'll find your sketchbook," he told the ghost. "But sometimes, I come across things that were lost. Is there anything you'd like me to do, if I did find something?"

"My sketchbook was also my personal diary. I would consider it a very great favor, if you could seal it, and send it on to my brother. Lawrence Fraser, of Liverpool."

Mori nodded. "I will do my best." As an afterthought, he added, "If you don't object....I keep an altar at home. Where I make offerings, to help spirits find rest. If you like, I can make offerings for you, too."

The woman tipped her head, and gave him a smile edged with melancholy. "That sounds like a lovely custom. And very generous. I would be greatly obliged, sir, if you could make an offering for me." 

She bobbed a little half-curtsy at him, and then raised her white parasol, tilting it back over her shoulder. "In return, would you take some advice from a stranger?"

"Of course."

"If you should meet the man who calls himself Gregor Heinrich. Please take utmost care. And the things at his estate...." She trailed off, with a distant, thoughtful frown, and pursed her lips. "Forgive me. It all seems so far away now. It's hard to remember." 

"It's all right. I promise to be careful, if I meet that person. Thank you for telling me." Glancing up, Mori discovered that time had passed more quickly than he realized; already the sun was slipping past its highest point, and into early afternoon.

"I'm sorry to leave you here, but I need to head home."  
"No, I quite understand. One wouldn't want to be caught out after dark here."

"I hope you can rest soon." Mori bowed, and the woman inclined her head.  
"Thank you for your kindness. I hope you travel safely, from here."

**

It was the habit of survival, that kept Mori's eyes sharp whenever he walked the forest. Those first months in the region, when finding enough food to subsist on was a near-daily struggle, had instilled a vigilant observance in him that had never left. Everywhere he went, he kept a mental catalogue of the trees, wild fruits and vegetable plants, and the course of the mountain streams. He also kept track of the state of the forest paths, which wound and twisted through the trees and terrain. Some made by the passage of animals or people, others which simply appeared for a brief time, and then were no more.

A few times, Mori had investigated those temporary trails for a short distance--never too far off the paths he knew--and often as not, they would lead him to places of interest which he never could find again later. 

Once he found a spring-fed pool, ringed with foliage uncommon to the rest of the forest; willow, bamboo, cherry trees thick with blossoms out of season. On another occasion, a different path had led him to the largest magnolia he had ever seen, with a trunk more than half the breadth of his cottage, and more than twice as high, with bent branches spreading nearly a quarter-acre, touching the ground in places. Its waxy-white blossoms were easily the size of his head, and filled the air all around with a dizzying sweetness. As much as he'd wanted to go in closer and explore that extraordinary tree, he feared the effects of its intoxicating scent. If he'd succumbed to his powerful urge to rest and relax there, there was no telling when (or if) he'd ever wake up.

Of course he was always alert to the sounds and shadows of the woods as well. The rooting grunts of wild boars; the stealthy crunch of a light-footed deer, picking its way through fallen brush. The dense, smoky quality of forest shadows that weren't really shadows at all, but the sign of something that didn't wish to be seen or disturbed. Mori was never that interested in finding out what those somethings were, feeling the knowledge would earn him more trouble than it was worth. He simply turned and gave them a wide detour.

So it was no great effort on his part, to look out for that woman's sketchbook, or her remains, whenever he went hiking. He took extra time looking around where he saw beech trees growing, in case the tree where he'd seen her had been a hint. And when he came upon areas where he recalled seeing noteworthy flowers in bloom (this late in autumn, he had to rely almost entirely upon his memory), he would look about for signs of anything out of the ordinary.

He had been out on just such an inspection, one blustery, cold October afternoon, when he came across the anemone just coming into bud, near an exposed outcrop on a high hill trail. He'd felt a hard frost was due any day, and with the flat gray sky and extra bite to the wind that afternoon, Mori suspected a light snow was on the way as well. Seeing as the plant's chances of survival in those conditions were minimal, he decided to bring the anemone home and pot it, to see if it might bloom indoors.

Sure enough, the wind rose that evening, the temperature dropped, and when Mori looked out the next morning, the clearing and trees were tentatively dusted in white.


	6. Chapter 6

_The streets are finally dry from the autumn rains, here in the village,_ the letter began. _And in every home, the hearths are glowing to keep us warm. I hope this letter finds you well, Morinozuka-san, and warm by your own hearth-fire...._

Having not received a letter in the old-fashioned formal style in so long, Mori smiled at the greeting. It sounded like the village grocer had put a sincere effort to the job.

_Once again I offer you humble thanks, for looking after the young fellow in my care and seeing him home safely, after his trip to your property. Your home made a great impression on him, and from all his talk since, it is plain to all of us here, that he holds you in a high esteem._

Here Mori paused, with a quizzical frown. What was there to esteem, he wondered? He and that visitor had only spent an evening and a morning in each others' company, most of that time in the lingering discomfort of an unfortunate remark, and really they'd hardly talked.

Maybe the young man was just highly impressionable. Mori shrugged to himself, and read on: _It is because he seems to look up to you, that I am writing now, and humbly asking whether I could put myself in your debt for a favor..._

(Uh-oh, Mori thought.)

_Being that I've taken him under my supervision, and that he is a newcomer to the village with no other family to secure his future, I have been looking to find him work around the village, hoping he could earn an apprenticeship and a permanent trade some day._

_Anyone will tell you the boy is a hard worker, honest, and good at following directions. He has been a great help to almost everyone here. But now in the cold season, with everyone keeping close to home, there isn't much demand for extra help. He's worked at the blacksmith's, the baker's, the cloth dyer's, and with Fukuo-san, on his package and furniture deliveries. If you want references, any of those persons would vouch for him._

_Please do not feel obliged in this matter. But if you had any work needing done in the next two weeks, I would take it as a great favor, if you would consider employing him however you see fit. I have sent on extra supplies and provisions, so he won't be a hardship. And if you agree to keeping him, rest assured I will send Fukuo-san back in two weeks to pick him up._

_If the inconvenience is too great, feel free to send him back this afternoon, and I promise there will be no hard feelings. I have not mentioned this arrangement to him, so in case it isn't feasible, you need not worry over disappointing him..._

When he finished reading, Mori tucked the note in his pocket, and poured the water he'd been boiling into the teapot, before taking the tray out to his visitors.

He couldn't think of any overwhelming reason to object to Arai-san's request. After all, two weeks of having someone underfoot was probably a small price to pay for the small mountain of supplies Fukuo-san had brought in his horse-cart, and an extra pair of hands to help finish the winter tilling, and other sundry chores he hoped to complete by the first deep snowfall.

But he couldn't help a quiet suspicion that there was more to the situation than Arai-san's letter was telling. First off, Mori knew next to nothing about the young man, or how he'd come to be in the grocer's care. And reading between the lines, Mori couldn't help thinking there was something odd about shipping him between so many employers. 

Unless they truly didn't need the help, he supposed, and were only offering work to be charitable. Considering the young man's gratitude for the smallest kindness, his apparently bottomless eagerness to please, and low expectations (asking whether he might be allowed to sleep on the bare floor or fend for himself outside; Mori still hadn't forgotten that), Mori wouldn't be surprised to find out they'd employed him out of pure altruism. In that position, no doubt Mori would've done the same.

"Sorry you had to wait." Back in the front room, he knelt with the tea tray, and set out the cups and plates, and a platter of dumplings he'd been grateful to find on short notice.

"Thanks for taking care of us," Fukuo rumbled. He was an enormous man, big-bellied and broad-shouldered, with black bushy eyebrows to match his black bushy beard. A man of few words, but an agreeable disposition, once you got to know him.

Mori poured the tea for him, and the young man who'd hardly stopped grinning since the moment the delivery cart pulled into the clearing. The younger Arai (since Mori had no idea what else to call him; he hadn't learned the boy's given name yet) gave a short bow over his tea. "Thank you, Morinozuka-san."

"Not too cold for you out there, I hope?" Mori asked, since weather was always safe for small talk.  
With a quiet glance, Arai deferred to Fukuo, who shrugged. "Not so cold." He sipped his tea and sighed and Mori, who had learned Fukuo could stretch a thought out longer than most people, waited quietly.

"Reckon we'll be feeling it in a month or two, though," he eventually finished.

And then, after another sip and a pensive moment, "Good tea."

"Matoyama had a good crop this year," Mori agreed, and tasted his own tea.

From the corner of his eye, he noticed Arai nibbling at his dumplings, and taking in the exchange attentively. He had on a different oversized shirt this time--faded green flannel instead of red, and he'd taken off an aged coat of black wool, at the door. His rolled-up trousers looked about the same and his hiking shoes had only looked a little better worn-in.

"Hm. Reminds me," said Fukuo. "Got some preserves for you. The wife made 'em, from your pears, said I should bring 'em up."  
"Please send her my deepest thanks," Mori answered, after waiting an appropriate amount of time. He poured more tea for Fukuo, and then Arai, and addressed him this time. "I hope you've been well, since we last met."

"I've been great, thanks," Arai beamed.   
Mori took another drink of tea, and decided to put out a feeler. "From Arai-san's letter, it sounds like you've been busy." He barely caught the subtle glance Fukuo flicked between them, but knew immediately that the man was aware of the grocer's offer.

"Oh yeah," Arai agreed. "He let me help out all kinds of places. I got to work at the blacksmith's, and help Fukuo-san. Last week, I was helping Hito-sama turn his garden over for the winter. He has a little trouble getting around, y'know, so he told me everything to do."

"You enjoyed the gardening?" Mori asked, and again saw Fukuo's glance shift.  
"I think I liked that the best," Arai nodded. "Working outside, and making sure the soil will stay healthy for next year. I never thought about soil being healthy. But Hito-sama says it's really important."

"He's right," Mori nodded. And then he thought he should play the next part carefully. So he served everyone more dumplings, and asked after the health of the other few people he knew in the village, and poured out the last of the tea. 

In the back of his mind, he was sorting out the pros and cons of sharing his home with a practical stranger for two weeks. The cottage was small; neither of them would have much privacy. Maybe Arai wasn't accustomed to having his own space, and wouldn't miss the loss, but Mori hadn't shared living space with another person since the days he'd wandered between towns and farms. 

Given their last encounter, he felt confident that Arai would respect his personal boundaries, it was just a matter of how much it might take out of Mori (remembering their discussion regarding the fox), each time he had to establish those boundaries with him. 

He supposed if the situation were outright unbearable, he could always escort the young man back down to the village, and be done with him. The grocer had taken pains in his letter to express that he was asking a favor, that Mori was perfectly welcome to refuse, and that it wouldn't infringe any on their relationship as neighbors.

But he also had the feeling that Arai-san had approached him as a kind of last resort. Which naturally led him to wonder, if he refused to take the young man in, what would become of him? Without knowing the rest of the situation, of course Mori couldn't even guess. 

He watched the young man, cradling his teacup in both hands and looking pleased as anything to be right where he was. As though making a two-hour trip up a bumpy trail through the cold woods, to have tea and dumplings with a pair of taciturn fellows was the highlight of his whole week, that he couldn't possibly ask for anything more.

So in the end, as with most things, Mori chose to go with his gut feeling on the matter. His gut told him that two weeks was hardly so long, and that the good it could do for Arai would surely outweigh whatever discomfort it would bring Mori. Even if he regretted it in a few days, it wasn't like he hadn't endured worse for longer.

With his decision made, and acting as though the idea had occurred naturally to him in the course of conversation, he said to Arai, "You know. If you're interested in field work, I wouldn't mind having some help with my winter tilling."

If he hadn't been expecting it, he would have missed Fukuo's minute sigh. Though whether it was a sigh of relief, a sigh that meant Mori wasn't fooling anyone, or something else altogether, Mori couldn't rightly say. But there was no mistaking Arai's reaction for anything but pure delight.

"Oh. No way, are you serious?" His smile reminded Mori of the time he'd walked out of a dark patch of woods and come upon a wide stream, reflecting the full high sun, right into his eyes. How he'd staggered back blinded, blinking away dancing afterimages. "You mean you'd really--."

And then he halted and seemed to recall himself, sitting back and casting self-conscious glances at Mori and Fukuo. "--I mean, yes, of course I'd be honored to help Morinozuka-san. As long as it's not a bother. I wouldn't want to be in the way, or anything."

"In Arai-san's letter, he gave me permission to ask for your help. He said he could spare you for two weeks, if you don't mind being gone that long."  
"No, I don't mind at all. If he says it's okay--," Arai gave a firm, determined nod, "--then I'll do my best for you, I promise."

**

Mori followed Fukuo out to get his pear preserves, and see the man off, while Arai carried the last of the provisions into the kitchen. At a point when the two men were alone, Fukuo left off checking his horse's harness, straightened himself, and took a long look around the clearing.

"He should do all right here," was the man's pronouncement. 

Following the customary long pause, he turned the look on Mori. Dark and stern, and totally indecipherable. If he didn't know Fukuo better, Mori might have been unnerved. "Show him a steady hand, and he'll find his footing."

What was the story here? Mori wanted to ask. What have I gotten myself into? But he only nodded his acknowledgment to Fukuo-san, and said, "When you see Arai-san next, could you pass him a message for me? I'd like him to know there is no debt between us. However--." He held out a bag of the morels he'd set aside, the week before. "--I would be grateful, if he would accept these, in return for a pair of those wool socks he had in stock last month. If he has any left."

Fukuo took the bag, regarding it gravely. "Any particular color you want?"  
"It doesn't matter. Whatever he has in large size."

"I'll bring 'em, when I come back up here," Fukuo nodded. 

**

In what seemed like altogether too short of a time, the delivery cart (with Fukuo at the reins like an impassive, bushy harbinger of fate), rolled down the path, and into the dimness between the trees.

Mori watched from the clearing, uncomfortably conscious of Arai at his shoulder, as it dawned on him that for the first time in his life, he was to be responsible for another person's welfare. For Arai's comfort and well-being, and--according to the young man's guardian, at least--his vocational prospects.

It was a profoundly intimidating notion.

"So." Arai looked to him eagerly, all but rolling up his sleeves in anticipation. "Where should I start working first?"

Good question, thought Mori.


	7. Chapter 7

Since it was late in the day to start any serious work, and Mori wanted some time to adjust to the idea of directing someone else's labor, he decided the best thing was to get Arai familiar with the property, and let him settle in at the cottage.

Thinking he might appreciate--even for a relatively short time--a space to call his own, Mori dug out the folding screen that had sat in the storage closet for who knew how long, and encouraged Arai to choose a portion of the front room to be screened off.

As he probably should have predicted, it took more than a little encouraging.

"Um. Well. Where do you want me?" Arai stood with his hands clasped behind his back, watching Mori uncertainly.

The front room was plenty spacious, especially considering there was no furniture except the table, and the stove in the far corner. Mori steadied the tall screen with one hand and gestured around him. "If you want to sleep next to a window, we could set up there."

"Alright," Arai agreed instantly, and took a step toward the window.  
"Or," Mori offered, and Arai halted. "You could be closer to the stove."

"That's good." Arai turned to march toward the stove, and Mori added, "The chimney rattles sometimes, when the wind blows. If you'd rather be further away..."  
Arai turned with a slight frown. "You don't want me by the stove?"  
"Wherever you'll be comfortable," Mori explained slowly, "is fine with me. You could set up by that wall, if you want."

"But your table's there."  
"I can move the table."

Arai had to stand and process this a moment. "So. You want me to pick out a spot?"

Mori was positive he'd explained that at the start, but nodded anyway. "Yes. Anywhere you want."

And when Arai went still and serious, looking back and forth between areas of the room at length, Mori understood what had escaped him before. 

It was so obvious, that up to this point Arai had been given scant few, if any, opportunities to make choices based solely on his own personal preference. He simply didn't know where to start. Although it seemed like a simple choice to Mori, and not at all consequential, he realized that to Arai, it was very important. The mere fact of having a choice to make for himself, was important.

"You know," Mori said quietly. "You don't have to make up your mind right away. You can think about it, if you want."  
Arai quickly turned. "Ah. Sorry. Am I holding you up?"

"Not at all. In fact...." He unfolded the screen, so it could stand on its own. "If you want to move this around, and try different spots, you can do that too. It's not heavy. When you find the place you like, we'll bring your bed in."

"O-Okay."

"Take your time. I need to rearrange the pantry, anyway."  
"Oh, should I help with that?"  
"No need. I'll show you where everything is, when I'm done."

**

"This is the compost barrel," Mori explained, tapping the wooden ribs with his foot. "All the kitchen scraps go in here, and any leaves or cuttings. Every few days, I move it--" And here, he bent down, and pushed at the barrel, which lay on its side on the ground, until it rolled halfway over, "--just to mix what's inside."

"That's a good way," Arai nodded. "Hito-sama has a trough, and you have to rake everything."  
"Hito-sama also has a wheelbarrow," Mori said, with a small smile. He'd seen the old master gardener's plots on visits to the village, and had gotten many excellent tips, which he'd adapted to his own needs. 

"Oh I get it," said Arai, brightening. "You just roll it wherever you're working, and shovel out what you need. You're really smart about this."

"Not so much," Mori admitted. "I had to think of different ways to do things, since it was just me. And I made lots of mistakes. Hito-sama's advice made a big difference."

Arai looked thoughtfully at him. "He's a good teacher, huh? I thought he was really nice, even though I didn't know anything."

"He is." Actually, Hito had reminded Mori of his best teacher, growing up. An elderly frail-looking monk who had made Mori sweep the temple courtyards until they were immaculate, hang all the linens on the drying line with undeviating precision, pull weeds until Mori could no longer feel his hands, and practice his writing lessons for hours, until each character, each stroke of the brush was perfectly executed. 

The monk was gentle, patient, but absolutely unremitting in his guidance. And while his practical teachings were all valuable, the fortitude, endurance, and attention to detail he taught Mori, beneath all those exacting lessons, ended up being priceless.

"You should learn all you can from Hito-sama," Mori told Arai. "He has a lot to teach. And he will help you a lot."

"Yeah. I would've liked to stay there more, but." He looked down, a shade regretfully, Mori thought, and toed the ground with one boot. "He has a lot of family at his place. Kind of like Arai-san does now, I guess. Pretty crowded over there, so."

"Arai-san's family?" Mori asked. This was news to him.  
"Oh. Yeah." The young man blinked up at him. "He didn't tell you? His uh, cousin, I think? Their house burned awhile ago. So they're staying at Arai-san's for awhile."

"Ah, I see." Mori kept his tone light, while several things clicked into place for him. The young man's visit to his cottage, for one thing. And the reason Arai-san was seeking alternate employment for his charge, rather than putting him to work in the grocery. A business like that would stay in the family, of course. And when there was work to go around, priority would go to Arai-san's family, for taking care of it.

Mori didn't doubt that Arai-san had the best of intentions regarding his ward. But with only so much of the man's time and attention to go around, good intentions simply weren't enough. The best he could do, was probably what he'd already done--make a concerted effort to help the young man become self-sufficient, and put him in the way of every available opportunity.

And now Mori had become a part of that.

"So I got the compost barrel," said Arai, straightening up and putting his hands on his hips. "What comes next?"

For a moment, Mori just looked at him, wondering what it must take to remain so open and obliging, in the face of so much uncertainty. Mori had survived thus far, thanks to an upbringing which was essentially a continual lesson in calm perseverance. But who had taught this person, he wondered? And what exactly had he learned?

"You want to see the orchard now?"  
"The pear orchard?" asked Arai, all bright enthusiasm once more. "I've wanted to see that since I got here."


	8. Chapter 8

It was just as well Mori had no preconceptions about sharing his home with another person. Because either way, Arai would have continually surprised him.

Judging by his appearance, which--excepting the state of his clothing--generally looked as neat as an active seventeen or eighteen-year-old male could maintain, it was clear that he understood proper grooming. And yet he'd had no idea what Mori's soaking tub was for, until Mori had explained it.

"You mean you sit in there? In all that water?" Giving the tub a baffled, somewhat dubious stare.  
"Sure. After you scrub off here--," Mori pointed to the bench, where he had soap and a washing-cloth, and a water basin for rinsing, "--then you get in here and soak."

"Soak."  
"It's good for the muscles," Mori explained. "After you've been working hard, the heat feels good."

Arai bent over the tub curiously, looking deep into the water. "Huh."  
"You can try it, if you want. Just get in slowly. The water's hot. Takes getting used to."

"Right."

**

In the kitchen, Arai sat on a wooden apple box in the corner, eyes tracking Mori's every move, and ready to jump at the least request.

"Do you do any cooking?" Mori asked, on the second evening. Mainly for a distraction from Arai's scrutiny.  
"Oh, no. I know not to bother the oven, don't worry."

Mori left off rinsing a bowl of noodles, a bit thrown by Arai's interpretation of his question. How did one 'bother' an oven, anyway?

"So you haven't worked in the kitchen before?" What about the village baker Arai-san's letter mentioned, he wondered?

"I can clean up in here. I can sweep and wash, and I'm allowed to eat in the kitchen--." Arai ticked off points on his fingers, as if reciting from lessons. "I can bring things you ask for. But I'm not to touch anything unless you say, or get close to the oven."

Mori could certainly see rules like that applying to a small child. But since he himself was old enough to listen to directions, he'd been helping all over the kitchen, including use of the ovens. And Arai certainly wasn't a child anymore. His simplicity may have been misleading, on a first impression, but he was far from impulsive or inattentive, and Mori had clearly seen evidence of mature intelligence in their interaction so far.

"What happened?" Mori asked. "Did you get burned by accident?"

Arai winced at the question, and tried to make himself smaller on the apple box. "Just a little. This one time," he mumbled. "But I didn't touch any ovens after that. Fudeko-san said I must have done something, whenever the bread went wrong. But I don't know what I did, I was just watching."

Even though he was mystified, Mori nodded, and then drained the noodles. This was definitely a more interesting development than the progress of dinner, but he had a feeling that if he stopped what he was doing, and focused properly on Arai, it would only make him more uncomfortable.

So he went through the motions of sorting utensils, and tried to think of questions to ask, which wouldn't lead to more confusing answers.  
"That's when you worked at the bakery?"

"Yeah. I liked that okay. It always smelled good. But they said I was unlucky around bread, so it wouldn't work out."  
"Unlucky?"

"Things always got ruined, when I was in the kitchen. The dough rose too much, or it got burned, or the bread didn't taste right. Mura-sama said Fudeko-san was doing the recipe wrong, but he changed everything, got new yeast and flour, and it still turned out bad. He said when I wasn't around it was fine." He rubbed at his kneecap, and drew his shoulders in. "So that was it."

What Mori suspected, was that this Fudeko-san--no doubt an apprentice to the owner--had been placing the blame for what was either random misfortune or else his own mistakes, on Arai. And with Arai's status as an outsider, the blame would have stuck. But since he couldn't see what good his opinion could possibly serve, he kept it to himself.

Instead, he moved a pot of water onto the grill, and said, "I don't make bread."  
"Huh?" Arai glanced up from contemplating the mended patches in his socks, with a half-frown.

"I've never made bread here. So it shouldn't be a problem." He took out a short poker, and stirred the coals under the grill, then added a few thin sticks of wood to get the water boiling. "The oven's really no different than the wood stove. And you're careful with that. So if you want to try cooking something, just say so. I'll show you."

"You--you mean that? You really don't mind? What if I burn something, or burn down the house?"  
Mori shot a disbelieving glance over his shoulder, and saw he was completely serious. What on earth had people been telling him? "Trust me. If I didn't burn down the house learning to use this oven, then I doubt you can."

The conclusions he was drawing about Arai's treatment in the village were beginning to rankle with Mori, for some reason he couldn't define. Arai was taken in, but not trusted. He was given shelter, but no choices or respect.

And while Mori knew he couldn't change a village full of people, he thought the very least he should do, was try and give Arai a different experience in the time he had. Which is why, instead of calling Arai over to wash the potatoes and onions, he called him to the grill instead.

"First lesson," he pointed to the water pot. "When that's boiling, you're going to put the vegetables in."  
"Boiling?" Arai took a cautious half-step back from the grill. "What's that?"  
"Big bubbles," Mori explained. "Small bubbles mean it's simmering, and then after that, you'll see it boil."

"So I just watch it? Until it boils?"  
"Yep."  
"That doesn't sound hard."  
"It's not."

"Okay." Arai blew out a breath and shuffled up to the pot with grim determination, like a man facing a mountain he intended to scale, no matter what. "Simmering, and then boiling Big bubbles. I'll watch for that."

As Mori saw to the potatoes and onions, he had to fight a strange, powerful urge to grin.


	9. Chapter 9

Arai was not merely a hard worker. He was, insofar as Mori could tell, inexhaustible. He straightaway took to Mori's routine of waking up before dawn, washing up, dressing, and lighting the kitchen fire. There was tea and breakfast, and when Mori went outside to limber up for work, Arai would wash the dishes, and then join him until the sun rose.

Exercise before work, Mori had explained, was a good way to prevent injury, as well as warm up on a cold morning. He taught Arai the stretching and calisthenics he did, and the young man took to it as earnestly as everything else he learned. 

The truth of the matter, was that Mori's vegetable plot was small enough that he could've finished the winter tilling all alone, in under a week if he pushed himself. But since there were two of them, and there was more he could teach than just digging, he chose to slow down and take that project in stages. 

So part of the day was given to turning the soil, laying out the winter mulch, and collecting the stones they turned up, for use elsewhere. The rest of the day they worked awhile in the orchard, pruning the pear trees and gathering deadwood for kindling, and from there moved on to various miscellaneous tasks, more or less as they occurred to Mori. Bringing rocks from the vegetable plot to shore up the irrigation troughs. Solving the problem of the squeak in the well windlass. Emptying out the root cellar, to check the walls for cracks and leaks.

Towards the end of the first week, Mori thought he should start adding household tasks to the lesson plan, since at this rate, he wasn't going to have any odd jobs left to do in winter. Every time he turned around, Arai was trying to outpace him. Whether it was in trips across the property with a rolling cart of rocks, or digging down the rows with the hoe and shovel. Once he was pointed in a direction, he was unstoppable, and he kept it up all day long.

Watching him work, Mori couldn't help contemplating what could be accomplished with Arai's help full-time. He could double the size of his vegetable plot. Start a second orchard, if he wanted. Construct a hothouse behind the cottage, and have fresh produce year-round. 

It was a briefly tempting fantasy, but it was brought up short by the fact that having Arai around on a permanent basis would require some serious modifications to the cottage. Specifically, the sort that would put another door, and maybe one or two walls between them.

By day, Arai was quiet, obliging and whenever indoors, generally tried to keep himself as much out of the way as possible. But at night, he dreamed. Fretfully and noisily, with thrashing and mumbles that rose and fell as the night went on. 

The first few hours of sleep would be peaceful; Mori would put out his bedroom lamp and sink into heavy slumber, only to be jolted up around midnight, by Arai's dreaming.

The first night of his stay was like the night he'd camped over. There was only one disturbance, for about a twenty-minute spell. After that it was two or three times a night, with an hour or so in between; just long enough for Mori to settle back into deep sleep, and then wake up disoriented and convinced that some clumsy stranger had broken in, muttering nonsense to himself.

But the sixth night was the worst of it. Mori bolted up in bed, a few hours before dawn, to the noise of what could only be a nightmare in the front room.

Up to that point, he hadn't disturbed Arai during the night. He apparently had no recollection of his dreams the next day, and no doubt would've been mortified to discover that Mori had been losing sleep over them. But it wasn't the usual indistinct mumbling he heard this time. There were whimpers, punctuated by soft gasping cries; sounds of fear and possibly pain, and Mori couldn't bear to lay still and simply listen to them.

He padded into the front room, adjusting the sash around his sleeping robe, and made his way around to the screened-off area where Arai slept, by the window.  
"Hey," he called softly. "You're just having a bad dream."

As he might have predicted, Arai had kicked off the quilts, and rolled himself off the pallet and onto the floor, where he lay curled, flinching and making high choked-off sounds in his throat.

Mori gave a yawning sigh, scratched at his bed-rumpled hair, and then knelt down at the head of Arai's bed. "Hey," he repeated. "Wake up, okay? You'll catch cold like this."

"No, please. Can't go there. Please." The words came distinctly, in tiny broken-off sobs that chilled Mori's heart in his chest. "No, I promised. I can't."

Whatever the boy was dreaming, Mori didn't think he could stand to know. "It's okay," he said, scooting closer, putting a tentative hand on Arai's shoulder. "It's just a dream. You're fine."

"No, no please..." He was shaking now, fists opening and closing, grasping at something only he could see, and Mori was sure that at any moment, he'd wake up shrieking.

Not knowing what else to do, he caught Arai under the arms, and pulled him up, just as the young man's whole body jumped, and with a cry he kicked himself forward into Mori's lap, arms flung around his waist, and head thumping into his ribcage.

Mori was rocked back, and knocked a bit breathless, but he got his arms around Arai's shoulders, saying, "Shh, it's all right, you're safe," over and over.

Arai's hair was damp with sweat and he breathed like he'd just run an uphill race, but he was otherwise still and quiet, and Mori waited for him to push up, to ask what had happened, or apologize, or possibly burst into tears.

But as the minutes wore on, and his grip around Mori's waist gradually slackened, and his breathing evened out, Mori realized he'd never woken up at all.

He stared out at the darkness beyond the window, with this lapful of sleeping young man, wondering what he was supposed to do now. Would Arai wake up, if Mori moved him back into bed? Would Mori be awakened in another hour, by another nerve-wracking nightmare?

The anemone in the windowsill was flourishing beautifully, he noted in his tired haze. He hadn't checked on it since Arai moved in, having trusted it to his care since he'd asked, diffidently, whether it was all right if he slept by the window with the flower. 

He'd fully expected to be denied, that much was clear, but he'd asked _"...because Morinozuka-san said I could choose."_ Adding, even more timidly, that he'd always thought it would be nice, to wake up and see something growing.

At which point Mori had been possessed by the bizarre, albeit fleeting urge to plant an entire window-box there for him.

They had made him sleep outside because of these dreams. Mori had been trying to ignore this bitter suspicion for several nights, but now he was ready to wager hard cash on it. Arai's dreaming would rouse any but the heaviest sleepers, and Mori couldn't imagine it was something new. 

Or course he had no idea who They might be; who in the string of Arai's caretakers would have ousted him from the house at night over the noise. And he thought it was probably best all around if he never found out. After watching this last dream, there was no chance he could behave civilly toward those people.

**

The next morning, Mori was struggling not to fall asleep over his tea. He'd eventually shifted Arai back to his futon and covered him up, but once back in his own bed, he'd found it impossible to sleep. And now the days of hard work and insufficient rest were catching up to him.

"Hey, Morinozuka-san, you feeling okay? You look a little pale."  
Mori had his elbows propped on the table, and was trying to make sense of his eggs. They tasted strange, for some reason.  
"I'm fine. Just a little tired."

"Oh. Sorry to hear that. Couldn't sleep last night?"  
Mori turned his attention to his rice, keeping his head down until he was sure his expression wouldn't give him away. As on previous mornings, Arai gave no indication at all of remembering the night before. 

Which was probably a mercy, come to think of it.

"I guess not," he answered. What had he put in the eggs? He could barely remember making them.  
"You want to rest this morning? I can work on whatever you want. Maybe after a nap, you'll feel better." Mori wasn't too tired to hear the genuine concern under those words. Arai spoke so sincerely, that he couldn't even find it in him to blame the young man, or resent the loss of sleep.

And it was an immensely attractive idea. Though one that Mori felt compelled to resist, on principle. Not that he didn't think Arai was more than capable of making himself useful while Mori napped. But except in cases where injury or illness kept him confined to bed, Mori had never in his life shirked a day's work, when there was work to be done. And he would certainly never pawn off his responsibilities on someone else, just so he could sleep.

"Maybe later," he answered, swallowing a yawn, and reaching for his tea. If nothing else, getting out in the bracing air and bright sunshine was bound to help wake him up.

**

"Is it okay if I ask a favor?" It was nearing noon, and Arai stood at his elbow, as Mori doused his face in freezing water from the well-bucket for the fourth or fifth time.  
"Sure," he answered, wiping his eyes on his sleeve.

"If you don't want to, that's fine. But I thought. If you told me what to do, I'd fix lunch today."

Mori was starting to think he would have been better off just taking the nap when Arai had suggested it. He'd been sluggish and forgetful all morning, and all too aware of Arai hovering; trying to anticipate what was needed and save him work at every opportunity. And while he appreciated the conscientiousness, Arai's surfeit of energy was starting to make Mori feel even more worn out by comparison.

"We could do that," Mori said, surrendering. Considering how the eggs had turned out that morning (the weird flavor must have been pickled plum, he decided), it was probably for the best anyway.

**

"Okay, I've got the noodles, the vegetables, the--uh--broth....you want some more tea, Morinozuka-san?"  
"Thanks, I'm fine."  
"Okay." Arai surveyed the bowls in front of him, and glanced at the pot of broth on the grill. "It's not bubbling yet. So what else should I put in?"

Mori sat on the one kitchen stool, propping his cheek on his hand, and trying to keep track of the process. "There are sesame seeds in the pantry. You could put that on the vegetables."

"Sesame seeds." Arai nodded and marched off to the pantry, looking up and down the shelves, lined with labeled jars and boxes. "Which one is that?"  
"Third shelf down--one more," he directed Arai's hovering hand.  
"This jar?" Arai touched a box labeled 'Mushrooms', and Mori shook his head.  
"To the left."  
"The yellow one?" Arai tapped the lid of a small jar, labeled 'Sunflower Seeds'.  
"The red one," Mori provided, and Arai gave a satisfied, "Ah!"

He watched Arai stride back to the counter with the jar, trying vainly to make sense of this odd discrepancy he'd lately noticed. It was a rare occurrence thus far, and so minor that he'd spared no thought for it.

So far as Mori could judge, there was nothing wrong with Arai's eyesight. He could pick out a white butterfly on a birch tree from a hundred paces, and could describe in detail, the flowers in Hito-sama's garden. Any tools or utensils Mori asked for came promptly, and Arai had excellent retention for the items Mori had to teach him the names of. 

But once in awhile, particularly in the kitchen for some reason, he simply blanked at identifying things. Exactly as he had just now.  
Mori squinted his sore, tired eyes at the pantry, seeking a clue. Was it his handwriting on the labels? He hadn't thought it was that bad. 

Or was it something to do with the earlier proscriptions Arai had learned, to touch nothing unless given explicit permission? If Mori's eyes weren't practically rolling back in his head, he could probably make sense of it.

The answer did finally come to him, when they were eating. Like a rice sack landing on his head, it was that obvious.

"You can't read." 

If he weren't so stupid with fatigue, he most certainly would have thought twice before blurting it out like that. As it was, he was left to cringe at his own thoughtlessness, when Arai froze and dropped his chopsticks.

"Sorry. I didn't mean to--. I just realized." He gave up on trying to fumble an explanation and sighed. "That was incredibly rude of me. I beg your pardon."

Arai slouched and stared into his bowl, flushed from his cheeks to his hairline. "Guess I shoulda said something." He sounded small and shamed, and Mori's conscience tore a few more strips out of him. "I just. Didn't think it'd be a problem, here."

"It's not," Mori hastened to put in. "It isn't a problem. I spoke out of turn."

But Arai shook his head. "I shouldn't have misled you. It was stupid. To think you wouldn't notice. Everybody else knows. I just figured, working here....Arai-san said if I worked really hard, maybe it wouldn't matter."

For a lengthy moment, Mori vacillated between the growing volume of questions he'd been quelling all week, and his near-desperate need to put Arai's mind at ease.  
"It doesn't matter," he stated. "You're an excellent worker, and you've helped a great deal here." In case the point wasn't clear enough, he added, "I'm not disappointed. And I don't think you've misled me at all."

It wasn't helping as much as he'd hoped, though. Arai stayed downcast, knotting his hands in his lap. "But you....but we can't be friends now. Since you've been to school, and I haven't. I know it was a dumb reason not to say something. People don't want to be friends with somebody who hides things, I know. I guess maybe I thought--."

He trailed off and bit his lip, and with a twinge of horror Mori thought, _Oh God, he's trying not to cry._

"Wait," he put up a hand, trying to forestall what was clearly imminent, grasping at the first point that jumped to mind. "I don't understand. What does going to school have to do with being friends?"

There was a beat of quiet, and then Arai raised his head and stared in disbelief, as though Mori had just asked what color the sky was. "Everything." 

That was the moment when Mori realized he'd been simmering inside, just like a pot on his grill, with every hint he'd gleaned of Arai's life down in the village. And he was too tired to bite his tongue this time, or pack the topic down into that basement of his mind where he relegated all the things that were Not His Business, and which he Shouldn't Interfere With.

"That is absolutely ludicrous," he stated, deciding that if pressed, he'd blame his bluntness on cranky exhaustion. "And whoever told you that was wrong."

Arai blinked, wide eyed, at him.

"I've known more educated people than I can count, who I wouldn't let set foot in my home. Going to school doesn't make someone better than you. It doesn't mean they're honest, or ethical, or that they have any more common sense than you. Anyone who thinks that, is mistaken."

It was the longest, most emphatic speech Mori had delivered in years. Possibly in his whole life. And it was clearly a little intimidating to his audience, he belatedly noticed.

He took a breath and calmed himself, then sipped at his soup. "I would take it as an honor, if you considered me a friend." 

It was more a defiant impulse decision than anything, but Mori felt that he meant it. In all the time he'd been wandering, and since he'd moved here--up until the very moment he'd spoken, in fact--it hadn't occurred to him to choose any friends. But if he'd been making a list of candidates based on merit, Arai certainly should have qualified for the top of it.

Unfortunately, his bold, well-meaning gesture made Arai cry after all.

"Ah, sorry," he sniffed, fiercely rubbing off tears as they rose up. "I think I got....something in my eye." He made a little choked sound that reminded Mori uncomfortably of the night before. "Maybe I should..." Another hard sniff, and a hitch of breath, and Mori interrupted, to rescue him.

"Maybe you should rinse it out in the kitchen," he suggested gently, and Arai nodded, pressing the heel of his palm to one eye, as he struggled to his feet and hurried off.

**

"You know, since we're friends, it's all right if you use my name." Mori put it out casually, after Arai had returned from a lengthy spell in the kitchen. He was puffy-eyed and a little pale, but seemed well enough in command of himself to talk. And Mori didn't see any point in skirting the issue, or allowing space for awkwardness to grow. If they were to be friends, it was best they establish it directly.

"Please feel free to call me Takashi," he bowed.

"...Takashi." Arai tested out the name for himself, with a far-off, thoughtful expression. "That's a good name. Thank you for telling me." He returned Mori's bow, and straightened with a smile that was both sad and wiser than any expression Mori had yet seen him make.

“I wish I could tell you my name now. But I don't have one.” He looked down to the table, with a small frown. “Or if I do, I don't remember it.”

Mori thought he really ought to be surprised. But maybe all the hints he'd gleaned so far, had on some level prepared him. Maybe he'd been collecting clues all along without even realizing it.

"If you don't mind my asking, how did you come to the village?"  
"I don't know," the young man shrugged. "They told me I came out of the woods."

Mori calmly took the teapot, and filled both their cups. Oddly enough, he was feeling more awake than he had all day.  
"Maybe you should tell me what you know, from the beginning."


	10. Chapter 10

He'd been found in the woods, east of the village. Half-starved, unconscious, without a stitch of clothing. It was a traveling printmaker and his wife who discovered him, and brought him to the village doctor.

"I wish I could've thanked them. Someday, I'd really like to do that." The travelers had to move on before he'd awakened. And even after that, he didn't speak or acknowledge his surroundings at all for quite some time.

The village constable came by daily, in hopes of interviewing him. They sent people to the site where he was found, looking for clues to his identity. Going on the chance he might be a kidnap victim or a runaway, his description was sent with messengers to neighboring towns, and everyone passing through was asked to spread the word.

"So far, nobody's heard anything. I guess if anybody was looking for me, we'd know by now."  
"How long has it been?"

"Ah. Kamio-sensei said it was--April, when they found me? The first thing I really remember was the flowers, on his cherry tree. He said I was looking out the window all the time, so I guess I remember that."

The sakura had blossomed in mid-May, this year, as Mori recalled. So the young man had convalesced about a month. He had a brief flash of memory--warm sunshine in a grassy clearing, holding the fox in his lap for the last time: _I'll wait for you...don't forget_ , and quickly shook it off.

That was why Mori hadn't heard about Arai; he hadn't gone down to the village since the fox left. The whole time that mystery had been playing out, Mori had been isolated, and otherwise occupied.

"How did you come to stay with Arai-san?" he asked.

Well it started with the flu, the young man explained. A nasty virus that laid out most of the town inside a week. And with so many people sick, Kamio-sensei couldn't look after him anymore. Arai-san had caught a mild case early on, but recovered before the rest of the town had fallen ill, and hearing the doctor was in need of help with the foundling boy, he offered to take him in.

"He was so nice. He made me a bed in his spare room, and gave me real clothes, since I just had this robe, from the clinic. He made food all the time, and talked to me all day. And this one day, I remember I started talking back. I didn't know if I could, at first. But he was talking about outside, all the things growing, and how the trees would have fruit pretty soon. And I told him about Kamio-sensei's cherry tree." Arai gave a little chuckle, remembering. "You should've seen his face, when I started talking." 

But then the questions had come. And they began to learn all the things the young man didn't know, or couldn't recall. When the doctor and the constable came to Arai-san's, they tried questions that might jog the young man's memory. Did he remember his parents? No. Did he remember the forest? Not at all. Did he recall any other people he might have known, or spent any time with? But his recollection was entirely blank.

And his understanding of the present was inconsistent. He could identify a bed, a wash basin, and the water inside it. He knew the names of quite a few fruits and vegetables, when he saw them. But a toothbrush was a mystery to him. He could not name the clothes he wore, until his guardian told him. The window he could identify, the teapot he could not.

For days, whenever Arai-san had a free moment, he took the boy around his home, his grocery, and the block surrounding it. Just naming things. The boy learned umbrella, horse-cart, oil lamp, pavement, charcoal, rain slicker, pencil, rubbish bin....two dozen or more items a day. And they discovered that he already knew twine, daffodil, sandals, chopsticks, incense, bird, butterfly, spider.

"It was hard. I got really tired all the time. I wanted to know stuff, but when I got tired, I'd forget it, or mix the words up. Arai-san would tell me to go rest, but I didn't want to. I'd keep seeing all these things I didn't know, and I just--." He sighed, and looked off. 

"It's like if I don't know, it could go away. It might disappear, if I don't know what to call it." He shook his head. "It doesn't make any sense, I know. It's a nuisance for people, when I'm always asking. I try to figure things out now, and not have to ask." 

Mori recalled a snatch of the conversation in the kitchen. _"...the yellow one?"_ And then just a little while ago, _"...you've been to school and I haven't."_

"Have you considered enrolling at the school?" Now that he understood where Arai had started, how far he'd come, Mori thought his native intelligence must be remarkable. Surely any self-respecting teacher would be thrilled to have him.

"School costs a lot of money. And I'm too old to start. They say for reading and math, and stuff, you have to start when you're a kid. It's too hard to catch on later."

"Who says that?" Mori frowned, and Arai's expression straightaway went guarded.

"Well, ah. I was kinda....eavesdropping? It's terrible bad manners, and I really try not to. But Arai-san was talking to the headmaster, from the school. They were talking about how much it would cost. For school and books, and the uniform and all. And the headmaster said....something about an investment? He said there were lots of trades where people didn't need to be....well, they didn't need to go to school to do it. And I should do something like that."

But Mori saw only one factor that was truly relevant "Do you want to go to school?"

"I'd like to read. And do sums, like Arai-san can do. I heard about this other thing...this subject, at school. It's about things that happened a long time ago."

"History?" Mori prompted.  
"Yeah. Arai-san and Hito-sama tell lots of stories like that. About kings and the gods, and how people lived, a long time ago. I'd like to learn that."

It was something about the Arai's smile, when he talked about those stories, that caught Mori's attention. How clearly it appealed to him, the idea of finding some finger-hold on the past, when his own history was so far out of reach. And how he relaxed when given freedom to speak, all his self-conscious hesitation momentarily forgotten.

Mori felt certain that Arai wouldn't squander any opportunity put before him. But he was unsure what he himself could feasibly offer in that regard. He could attempt to share what he remembered of his own schooling. He could lend the young man--his friend now, he reminded himself--a listening ear (something evidently in short supply around the village). He could try and nurture Arai's fragile self-confidence, whenever he had the chance.

Though that might be an uphill battle. Given the reality of his daily life in the village, and those people he encountered who appeared, to Mori's reckoning, highly reluctant to raise their expectations of him. It was a definite downside to Arai's receptivity, that he seemed just as apt to believe harmful things about himself, as he was the helpful things.

And time was a limiting factor. What more could Mori teach, in the seven days they had left? After that, the young man would return to the village, where Arai-san would presumably have further work opportunities lined up for him. And shortly thereafter, the winter storms would come, blocking passage from the village to Mori's property, for a week or two at a time. 

It would be spring before he could reasonably hire him on again. Though by then, he would in all likelihood have his choice of jobs which were considerably more lucrative than working on Mori's property. All Mori could feasibly offer was room and board, and practical advice. 

Realistically what the young man needed, to secure his future as Arai-san had put it, was money. Or at the least, a trade he could ply for income in the next year or so.

Out of all the consequences he might have expected from having another person in his home, Mori had never suspected he might end up vexed by his own limitations. He'd never involved himself in others' prospects before. He'd never taken the time to look at the difference between someone's current circumstances, and the potential they had. He was accustomed to managing his own fate, in which he applied every effort and pushed his capabilities toward making the best of circumstances, as they came to him.

He had never looked at himself, or anyone else, and thought, You deserve more. Until he met this young man, that is. Until he worked alongside him, and taught him to cook rice, and shared the porch with him at lunchtime. Until he caught him from a nightmare, and felt the snagging in his chest, seeing Arai's wistful smile when he talked about learning history.

But this 'more' was not in Mori's power to bestow. And he did not want the balance of his life upset by the frustration of things he could not have, or could not do.

He could be a friend. And in their remaining days together, he could encourage Arai's confidence, try to give him something that might stay with him, when he returned to the village. Maybe the respect of one person wasn't much, but for a person who didn't have much to begin with, even the smallest things could be valuable.

He didn't recall many details of the conversation after that. Arai talked of myths and stories he'd heard, and Mori obliged him with a few from his own memory. Their lunch stretched on towards dinnertime, and when Arai expressed worry about the work going unfinished, Mori said it was fine, they had earned a day off.

Midway through the evening meal, a wave of exhaustion rolled over Mori and he finally surrendered to it, begging out of the conversation with his apologies, and staggering back toward his bed. He remembered Arai wishing him good night, promising to clean everything up, and then Mori was flat in his bed and sinking into soft, comfortable darkness.

So far as he was aware, there were no restless dreams in the front room that night.


	11. Chapter 11

It was the weirdest shock of deja-vu, stepping out on his porch with the lunch tray, to find Arai standing at the bottom of the steps, soaking wet and streaked all over in mud.

"There's um. A person? Over at the creek." He looked befuddled, and a bit too pale. "I think it's a person. She wants to talk to you?"

Mori certainly wasn't expecting that. "You could see her?"  
"I thought it was somebody swimming, for a minute. But. She was shiny." Arai stared at a splotch of mud on his arm, and then looked down at his feet. "I think it kinda scared me. I got my boots wet."

He was stunned senseless, Mori realized. He wasn't even aware of how hard he was shivering.  
"You're going to catch a chill, if you keep those clothes on. Come inside, and I'll find you something dry."

"I don't think she got it, that I wasn't you." Arai spoke in a calmly dazed manner, paying no mind at all to Mori removing his footwear, and bundling him off toward the hot bath.

"Mizuko-chan doesn't see many people," Mori explained. "They mostly look the same to her. Why don't you wash off, and have a soak until you warm up some. You can put this on." He hung a lined sleeping robe on a spare towel hook.

"Are you going down there?"  
"Not right away." The water spirit could wait, Mori thought. There wasn't any way he was leaving Arai alone in this state. "I'll have some tea ready, when you come out."

"Morino--ah, I mean Takashi?"  
Mori stopped, half out the door. "Yes?"  
"Is this place really haunted, like people say?"

"Not so much," Mori answered, and at Arai's look of apprehension, added, "The cottage isn't. I'll explain when you're done in here."

**

"Y'know, I thought everybody made that stuff up. About you living with the ghosts, and everything."

Mori looked at Arai, negotiating the sleeves of his robe to keep them out of his lunch. "That's what they say in the village?" He hadn't been aware of any rumors concerning him there, before. In fact, he'd kept his visits brief and widely spaced, partly to avoid just that.

"Even I could tell they were just saying it to scare me," Arai shrugged. "I mean, if you were going to turn me into a tree or something, you would've done it when we first met. And people can't turn people into trees, anyway."

Mori wondered if this business about trees were a subject worth pursuing, and decided maybe some other time.  
"There was only one ghost here, when I first came. She needed to find some things, and after I helped her, she moved on. I've never seen any more on this land."

Arai looked up from his rice. "But you've seen them other places?"  
"I've seen them my whole life," Mori said, and then added, "I'd appreciate it if you kept that to yourself."

"Of course," Arai agreed soberly. "People would think we were both crazy."

"You don't think I'm crazy?" Mori asked, mainly curious at how well he seemed to have bounced back after his initial shock. Arai gave him a crooked smile.   
"I just got scared into the creek by a water spirit. Why would I think you're crazy, talking about ghosts?"

It was a good point. "Would you like to come along, when I go talk to her? You could get a proper introduction, then."

For a moment, Arai looked amenable to the idea. But then he frowned and looked down at his sleeves. "Ah. I would. But my clothes...." Then his eyes went wide, and he made an anxious noise. "My boots!" Hurriedly, he set his rice bowl aside, and rose for the door.

"I got the mud off, when you were in the bath," Mori said, forestalling him. "They'll dry a little stiff, but I have some oil that might help."

"You--." Arai halted mid-step and glanced back at Mori, and in that instant, for no reason he could understand, the tableau froze and riveted itself on his mind's eye. 

The way the robe draped the young man, from his shoulders to his toes. The framing of the doorway behind him; muted winter light spilling in, picking out the soft clear line of his features. The accidental grace of his raised hand, wrist arched and fingers loosely curled, the way one might lift a lantern.

Arai's hand dropped to his side, breaking the moment, but that picture stayed with Mori, like an echo on the backs of his eyes. "I can't believe I forgot. But you cleaned them for me?"

For the first time in his recollection, it was Mori's turn to feel a sudden prickle of shyness. It was an awkward fever rising inside him, heating his cheeks and the back of his neck, while his eyes kept trying to swerve to anyplace but where Arai stood.

"You always take care of them," he murmured. Every day after work, Arai was out on the porch cleaning his shoes, inspecting any scrapes or scratches in the leather, pulling out the lacings to get every speck of dirt from every crease and cranny. And Mori understood why. Because they were his. They were the only things in the world, that were truly all his.

"It's understandable that you forgot this time. I didn't know if you'd....be all right. So I cleaned them off, before the mud stained them. It wasn't any trouble."

After a silent pause, Arai walked over to him, but Mori--to his exasperation--didn't entirely trust himself to look up yet. "Thank you. I owe you, for that."

_Quit being stupid,_ Mori ordered himself. _Just look at him, already._ "You really don't." He glanced up, failing to grasp why such a simple action should test his composure so. "Friends do those things. It's not about owing." 

And before Arai's smile could derail him again, he said, "I have some clothes and shoes you could wear outside. We can wash your things out when we come back. If you want to go."

**

"Mizuko-chan?" Mori called, when they reached the stream. "Did you want to see me?"

Arai had led Mori to the area where he'd fallen in, and now hung back a few paces, from Mori's shoulder. The water was running a bit slower than usual, probably due to the lack of rain recently, Mori thought.

"I saw her over there," Arai pointed across the stream. "I told her I'd bring you back here."

"She doesn't usually stay in one place for long," Mori said. "We can wait, and see if she comes back." He moved over to a flat rock in the shade, and took a seat, and Arai followed suit.

"Does she have a home somewhere on the stream?"  
"She's never told me," Mori said. "I think all the water around here is her home."  
"The river too?"  
"Parts of it. She's said there are parts where she doesn't go, so maybe there are boundaries."

"Huh." Arai pulled his knees up, wrapping his arms around his legs. "Maybe other water spirits take care of the rest."  
"That's what I thought. She's mentioned one other before, but I've never come across any."

"What about other spirits? Like tree-spirits, and house-spirits, and fox--." He broke off and clapped and hand over his mouth, wide-eyed. "Sorry. That just--."

"It's okay," Mori said, and smiled for Arai's benefit. He'd seen that one coming. He'd been running the list in the same order, in his head. "I've wondered too. I've never seen a house-spirit at the cottage. I think I stayed in a place that had one, one time. And the fox...." He trailed off and shrugged. "He looked like a regular fox, to me. He lived indoors, and ate the food I gave him. And he was good company." It still ached to talk about. But Mori thought he was bearing it better, somehow. The hurt only rose so far in him now, not quite to the high-tide line that had once choked him, and then dragged him under with it.

"But other than that," he went on. "He wasn't much different from any wild creature."  
"You made friends with him," Arai said, resting his chin on his knees.  
"Over time, yes."

"And you made friends with me." Arai gave a soft smile, the one with the familiar wistful edge. "I'm really happy about that. Even though....I feel a little bad. That when I go back, you'll be by yourself again."

Mori looked over then, wondering if there would ever come a point when this person would cease surprising him. If there was anyone to feel badly for, he thought, it was Arai himself. Back in the village, he'd be surrounded by people, and yet still an outsider with an uncertain future. Mori thought that had to be a lonelier feeling than total solitude. Especially for someone like Arai.

"There's no reason to feel bad," he said. "The village isn't that far, and we'll still be friends. You're welcome here, you know. Any time you want to visit."

"I'd like that. Thank you." His smile stayed quiet, reserved, Mori thought. Still genuine, but without the brilliant enthusiasm he'd seen before.

For just a moment, Mori was tempted to ask. What if Arai stayed, into the winter? What if they hiked down to the village, and asked the grocer's permission for another few weeks? 

But then what if Arai-san didn't give it? What if he had other plans for his ward already? It would be unkind to get the boy's hopes up. And selfish of Mori, to keep him sequestered up here all winter, when Arai could be doing more fruitful work, finding the opportunities he needed.

Mori had to remember his place in the larger picture, and that he couldn't disrupt Arai's long-term chances, just to see him smile more in the short term. In the end, it would be no better than allowing that anemone to bloom in the warmth of the cottage, and then planting it out in the deep winter snow.

_No better than putting a leash on the fox, to make it stay,_ added a quiet voice in the back of his mind. But Mori didn't care for that comparison, or any train of thought it led to. By way of evading any further consideration, he propped himself back on his hands, casting back through the conversation, before talk had gone to foxes and friendship....

"Now tree spirits...." He landed safely on the topic, just as Arai sat forward and said, "Oh, you came back!" He scrambled off the rock, and down to the stream, quite before Mori had registered the water-spirit down there, looking up at both of them.

"Please forgive my rudeness, earlier." Arai knelt at the edge of the stream, with his hands on his knees, and bowed. "But I got Takashi--er--Morinozuka-san, so you could talk to him."

The water-spirit watched him, with its shiny unblinking eyes for a moment. Then it looked over to Mori, and back at Arai. "You lost your name."

Mori had been on the verge of stepping forward, to smooth the introduction, and deflect some of the bluntness of the water-spirit's personality from Arai, if needed. But at this statement, and the soft noise of Arai's shocked inhalation, he froze.

The water spirit raised up from the stream, extending one thin, shimmery arm toward Arai, saying, "You should keep this. Without a name, there can't be balance."   
"Oh--um." Arai glanced back at Mori, who could think of nothing at all to contribute.

"Th-thank you. Sorry for the trouble." He held his cupped hands out hesitantly, and the water spirit dropped a small round object into them.

"It's--oh, it's pretty." Arai smiled at the water spirit, surprised pleasure momentarily overcoming his bafflement. "Thank you for this kind gift."  
Mori moved down quietly next to Arai, at the bank of the stream, and Arai turned, tipping his palms so Mori could see the small bluish stone, polished smooth all over, with a white marking, like a star flaring in the center.

Mori wasn't positive, but if asked to guess, he would've said the water spirit had given Arai a rough sapphire, the size of a spool of thread.

"It is not a name," the spirit cautioned. "But it will slow the flood down."  
"Er--sorry, which flood?" Arai glanced down to the stream by his knees, with a look reminding Mori of his own early conversations with the spirit.

"Is Mizuko-chan concerned about currents?" he asked.  
The spirit turned and stared at him. "The river is heavy. On the far side of the trees, the water goes still. And trees are falling, there."

"You've seen this?" Mori asked.  
"Not me. My water stops at the bridge."  
"The other side of the forest?"

"Where the fish stay away, and the trees are dark." The spirit looked at Arai. "This person was there, once. I can see."

"Do you see a mark?" Mori asked on a sudden impulse, raising a hand to Arai--who looked increasingly confused--to beg his patience.  
"There was a mark. There should be a mark." Pointing to the stone in Arai's hand, it added, "But that will have to do. Keep it close."

"All right," Arai nodded, frowning. "I will. But--I'm sorry--but where was I? That place you just talked about?"

"Lost," the spirit replied. "Everything in that place is lost." It twisted back from the bank then, darting quickly beneath the water like a glimmer of moonlight, and resurfacing with a flick and a splash. "The river stones need turning again. The white ones are too far apart."

Knowing the spirit would answer no more questions when it had tasks to attend, Mori bowed. "Thank you for speaking with us. Good luck with your work."  
"Ah, yes, thank you," Arai chimed in, following Mori's lead, though he was clearly reluctant to see the spirit go. "I'm glad I got to meet you."

Once the spirit had flickered back down into the stream bed and disappeared, Arai turned to Mori.  
"What?" was all he could manage, and Mori nodded.  
"Don't worry, that was my first impression too."  
"But. I don't even."  
"Yeah. I know."


	12. Chapter 12

As they walked back to the cottage, Mori attempted to translate what he could of Mizuko-chan's cryptic statements. He started by explaining about currents and how the spirit managed the flow of water in the region, in the same way Onuma had explained it to him. Only to discover that Arai had not heard of feng shui, or the theory of gravity.

So Mori stopped on the path, and picked up a nearby stone, held it up and dropped it. Gravity, he explained, was the force that made things fall down.

Naturally, Arai was engrossed by the idea, and that there was actually a name for something invisible, and yet so completely ubiquitous.

"What makes gravity?" he asked. "How does it work?"  
"I have no idea," Mori told him. The important thing, he added, was that it was a force which a person could feel, but not see. But Mizuko-chan could see forces like gravity. When she talked about currents, she was talking about things she saw, that no one else did.

"Can you see those currents?" Arai asked.  
"Not at all."  
"Huh."

Mori then went on to explain briefly about the stones. He didn't think it was worth getting into the story of the dry stream behind the orchard, since it was the sort of thing one would had to have seen, to believe. He only said that Mizuko-chan could find certain stones that affected the currents in water in certain ways, and that for instance, she managed the flow of water from the river, to the tributary, to the stream, and down into the orchard, by moving these stones around.

"Stones like this?" Arai asked, cupping the smooth blue gem in his hand.

"I think that's a special one. Most of her stones look like regular river stones, to me. Only she could tell the difference." After a moment's deliberation, he added, "You should keep that close, like she said. I don't think I'd show it to others, if I were you."

"Why not?"  
"I don't know. Just a feeling. " Mori didn't want to say what he thought: that if someone saw the gem in the boy's possession, they might try to take it, or question how he got it. He didn't feel right, planting a suspicion like that in a blameless mind.

"How did she know those things about me? Did somebody tell her?"  
"It's hard to say. She sees things we can't, but she doesn't always use words the way we do." Mori explained about the water spirit's concept of all animals being varieties of fish as an example, which earned a chuckle from Arai.

"When she talks about a current, it means something more than it does to us. And maybe when she talks about a name, that means something else too."

"What about the other thing, the mark?"  
"I'm not sure what it is," Mori confessed. "But she says some things are marked 'Don't Touch'. " He explained about the certain trees and stones, and the well and the cottage, and some paths in the forest, and the pine cone which still sat on the ledge above the pool. "She said the fox had a mark, when she saw it. Maybe some people do too."

"So I _should_ have a mark?" Arai frowned.  
"It doesn't make sense to me, either. I've never heard of anything like that mark. And I don't know what it's supposed to do, or where it comes from."

"Could it be like a charm? Like something for good luck? Or maybe a curse..." He pursed his lips and thought. "But that wouldn't make sense. If your well was cursed, or your house, then bad things would happen, right?"

Mori thought that sounded reasonable. "And I touch the well and the cottage all the time. You've touched them. Nothing strange ever happens when we do." Although in the past, he recalled to himself, both the cottage and the well had been--in a sense--sealed off from trespassers. 

"Maybe it means those things are protected," he mused aloud. Though how to test that theory, he had no idea. He certainly wasn't about to damage the cottage, or the well, or risk chopping down a tree, just to find out.

"How about that lost place? Do you know what that is?"  
"I've seen strange places in the forest. Places where animals won't go. Places with trees that don't belong around here." He glanced over at Arai, who was watching the path ahead, but listening closely. "You should always be careful, when you're walking in the woods. That first time we met, I didn't want to worry you then, but you were really very lucky."

"Yeah," the boy nodded gravely. "Arai-san told me, when I got back. He said people have gone into the woods, and never turned up again. Even with the whole village searching, nobody found a single clue. He said it was like something opened up in the woods, and just swallowed them."

"Always stay on the paths you know," Mori cautioned. "I think there are some paths that show up, but then later they're gone. It's like they were never there at all."

"Spooky," Arai shivered, with a nervous little grin Mori's direction. "People tell stories like that, in the village. But you've really seen it. Do you ever get scared?"

"It's okay to be scared, as long as you don't panic, and make a mistake. Being scared reminds you to be careful."

"I think I panicked, when Mizuko-chan surprised me. But she really isn't scary. I'll try to remember that, next time I get surprised."

**

Mori later thought he should have paid more attention to the water-spirit's pronouncements about the boy, with respect to what impact they might have on Arai himself. At the time, he'd seemed to take the information with a thoughtful equanimity, appearing mostly interested, as Mori had been, in the water spirit's terminology, and absorbing all the new concepts suddenly thrust upon him.

The vague suggestions the spirit had given regarding Arai's past had gone largely unexplored, primarily because Mori himself wasn't much help in unraveling them. And since Mori's habit had always been to wait on such mysteries, once he'd pursued them as far as he logically could--troubling over unanswerable questions being a waste of energy, in his experience--he simply assumed the boy would do the same. 

After all, Arai did nothing to contradict that assumption, at the time.

**

Mori was in the kitchen, wondering if the tomato vine and herbs he'd kept in the window ought to be re-potted. Last fall, for an experiment, he'd planted the small pots on the broad ledge of the kitchen window; cherry tomatoes, green onions and parsley, and finally concluded that the arrangement was more decorative than anything. The tomato vine had yielded only a few fruits during the winter, and the parsley and onions were enough to enjoy--very sparingly--for a treat now and then.

But apparently this year, the plants had adapted to indoor conditions, and decided to grow after all. The tomato vine had over-run its small stake, and begun sprouting a dozen tiny green bulbs. The parsley was so thick, Mori could hardly see the top of the pot, and the onions were packed as close together as their buried bulbs would allow.

If nothing else, parsley and onion would figure heavily in the next few meals, he thought, before the plants could grow themselves out of available soil and water. As for the tomatoes, he'd probably ought to start looking for a bigger pot.

"Ah, sorry to bug you Takashi. But did you have any more pins for the drying line?" Arai peeked in the kitchen, propping the laundry basket on his hip. "I got most of it hung, but--." He squinted and shuffled closer. "Hey, check out your tomatoes. They really took off, huh?"

"You haven't been talking to the window pots, by any chance," Mori joked, and Arai blinked at him.  
"Just when I'm washing up. Why, you don't want me to?"

It was from Hito-sama, that Arai had gotten the notion that one should talk to plants, to encourage them to grow. Mori had learned this, after walking in on a quiet, one-sided conversation Arai was conducting with the anemone by his bed.

Mori had talked to ghosts and spirits, and the fox, and when he was alone he sometimes talked to himself. But he'd never heard of talking to plants, as a beneficial measure before. According to Arai and Hito however, it was just as important as water and proper sunlight. Though Arai was unable to explain exactly how this was so; people had said he shouldn't question Hito-sama, since he was a respected elder, so Arai had mostly just listened and filed away all the learning he could.

"I don't mind," Mori told him. "It obviously doesn't hurt them any." He glanced back at the window pots. "I'm just wondering what I can use up a lot of parsley and onion on."  
"Soup?" Arai offered. "Rice balls? Ooh, what about those potato things you made the other night?"

"That was an accident," Mori pointed out. "I put in oil instead of shoyu."  
"It was a good accident, then. I liked them."

Mori might have teased that the boy liked everything he was served, equally and without reservation. But that could lead to subjects Mori would just as soon not remind Arai of. He suspected the reason Arai liked everything he was given, was because he'd been given very little, and probably grudgingly, in some situations.

Since thinking about it made him seethe with discontent, Mori tried not to, and was also learning not to stray into subjects where Arai might have to confirm those sorts of suspicions.

Instead, he said, "You might be right. If I can repeat the accident, I'll put parsley and onions in there, too. Oh and--," he waved a hand in the general direction of the back of the cottage. "Try that shelf in the bath, for more pins."

"Thanks," Arai grinned.


	13. Chapter 13

The brush was thick with black ink, and the parchment smooth and white. Mori breathed in and then out, slowly, to steady his hand. He held the brush poised over the pure unmarked surface, feeling the shape to come behind his eyes, in his heart, in his breath.

First stroke down, bristles spreading and the ink soaking in. Next stroke across, and Mori breathed, in--the brush coming back to make the down, across--out, and down.

His mind was all breath and heartbeat; the breath of the brush, the breathing parchment. The stripes of wet ink, one trailing into the next, and he curved his empty hand to the paper, warm and living, a long sigh out on the next down stroke.

_is it a name?_ he heard, and turned his wrist; twisting the tip of the brush to an up-curve, up for a blink and then the bristles flat to the surface, smooth and pale, shadow of a shoulderblade, glistening black stripe skimming a curve of muscle, while his empty hand trailed up a ripple of ribcage, smooth as ink, smooth as breathing, and Mori wrote the shape in his heart with his brush, blacker than the space behind the moon, he wrote strokes up and down and he leaned in and tasted the soft, untouched surface in between.

_is it a place?_ came the whisper, and the shape was behind Mori's eyes, and under his tongue, and quickening in his pulse. With both hands he touched, warm skin, warm curves, breath and heartbeat. Arching spine, flexing shoulder, sighing under his mouth and his palms, and in the warm empty space of his mind he heard _don't get lost, don't get lost---_

"Don't get lost," he said aloud, and blinked his eyes open to the dark ceiling of his bedroom, quilt knuckled up in both hands, heart thudding fast, and his breath dry and scratching in his throat.

_What._ he thought, eyes wide as the mouth of his well, and the heat of the dream still simmering within him. _What in the hell...._

But he knew. Wet black ink on skin, the brush in his fingers. That voice, whispering questions. Mori knew.

And when he could stand the silence and the darkness and the infinite distance from sleep no more, he pushed back the quilts, rose from bed. Stepped silently into the bath, where the cold stones bit like ice against his feet. Poured water into the basin, seeing the ink strokes, the shining black bristles of his brush. But the strokes broke apart when he tried to grasp them, read them.

He cupped the water in his palms, cold, and pressed it to his cheeks, his eyes. Another double-handful, trickling down his jaw, swiping it up his forehead, to his scalp. He breathed, blinked, cupping water to rinse away his fever, sipping the cold from his palms.

Every time he closed his eyes, he saw it, his brush trailing sleek skin, and if he went back to bed and lay still he would taste it. A little salt, a little sweetness, yielding to the pressure of his lips.

So like a man crossing a field of eggshells, Mori slipped from the bath, into the hall, soft on the soles of his feet, stepping without sound into the dimly moonlit front room, holding his breath, eyes on the front door.

And then freezing at the quiet, sleep-raspy voice. "Takashi...?"

Mori bit his lip, drew in breath, but found no words.  
"You okay?" Arai asked, bedclothes rustling.

"Just getting a drink. Sorry if I woke you."   
"Wasn't really sleeping, I guess." Arai came shuffling around the screen, mussed hair, and tugging his borrowed robe down in front. Mori had to squeeze his eyes shut for a second, but that was really no help, so he swallowed and looked off toward the kitchen.

"Want some water?"  
Arai worked his answer around a yawn, "Yeah, thanks."

Mori lit a stub of candle by the oven hearth; just enough light to find the cupboards by, and pulled out a pair of teacups.

"Tomorrow's the last day." Arai was leaning on the counter, arms folded, and looking out the kitchen window. "I was wondering what it will be like, going back."

Mori poured the water into the cups, even as he debated whether to make tea instead, not because he wanted tea, but because tea was what you did when you wanted to keep your hands busy for a bit. Lighting the fire, filling the pot, measuring out the leaves....

"Arai-san will be glad to see you again." Mori could say this, because it was true, and it was harmless, and he didn't have to think about ink strokes on bare skin, or this young man going defenseless back to a place where no one listened, or told him he was someone good, someone worth knowing, or made sure he had a little comfortable space of his own.

"Yeah. I'll be glad to see him, too." He took the cup of water Mori offered "--thanks--", and turned to prop one hip against the counter. "You didn't have a bad dream, did you? You seem different."

Mori sipped from his cup, thinking how to deflect the subject without a lie or a rebuff. "It was a strange dream. I was writing something, but I can't remember what."

"I have dreams I can't remember. Just that it's dark. And I'm trying to go somewhere, but I can't."

Mori looked at Arai then, for the first time. Glimpsed his face in shadows and candlelight, and just as quickly had to look away, because what he saw made his breath catch in his chest. Made him want to tell the truth, _I dreamed something I can never have, or hope for. I know about your dreams, too. But I'm not allowed to wish I could save you from them._ Instead, he looked at the Arai's fingers, sturdy and square, wrapped around his cup.

"Does it scare you?"

"I think." Arai shifted the cup in his hands, turning it. "Mostly it's sad. I think I dream about what Mizuko-chan said. That lost place? But I don't think...." He sighed, a complex, indecisive sound. "Takashi, is it okay if I tell you something? A secret?"

"Of course."

Another sigh. "I think some people want me to remember where I came from, so I'll go back there. But when I have those dreams. I think. I don't want to know. Maybe I don't want to remember. And I know that makes me a burden--."

"No," Mori put in, quietly, but decisively. "No it really doesn't."

"But I should want to get better. I should want to get my memory back."

Mori voiced the idea, even as it occurred to him for the first time. "Maybe you shouldn't, if you're better off now? Maybe what you've forgotten, there's a reason." And then realizing he didn't care to entertain whatever scenario it was, that would make Arai's life in the village such a vast improvement, he tried to turn the subject.

"A long time ago, before I came here...." Mori paused a moment, knowing he had to think this through carefully. He knew he couldn't tell too much. All along, he'd known he had to protect the people he spoke to. On the slim, tiny chance they were ever questioned about him, the less they knew, the better it would be for them.

"The place where I grew up, they didn't want me around anymore," he tried again. "I had to leave, with nothing at all. But one person told me I could start my whole life over, and make it any way I wanted, as long as I didn't look back. So I did. I traveled for a year and a half, until I came here."

He paused, knowing by now, how Arai loved to hear a story. That his favorite questions were _How?_ , and _What happened next?_ And he had to be careful, he had to think it through, but something had convinced him that Arai should hear this story. That of all people, Arai ought to hear what Mori had never told anyone.

"What did you do? How did you get by all that time?"

Mori smiled and sipped his water. "A lot of hard work, just like you. I worked wherever they would take me, mostly for food and a place to sleep. Sometimes in towns, sometimes on farms. And when I wasn't working, I was walking."

"A year and a half." Arai shook his head. "That's a really long time, isn't it."  
Reminding Mori that the young man wouldn't know, he only remembered the last six months of his life. "I traveled through two springs, and two harvest seasons," he said, to help Arai's frame of reference.

"And you worked, like I do?"  
"I worked in restaurants, and hostels, and at highway stations. I cleaned, and cooked, and did deliveries, took care of horses, farm animals. Worked the harvests, rice planting, built houses...." Mori looked off, trying to recall what else. "Blacksmith, cloth dyer." 

"You did everything." Arai thought it over a moment, then frowned. "But how come? If you can read, and you've been to school, you should get better jobs, right? I mean, you could work for money, instead of just food and a bed. Isn't that better?"

Because he couldn't afford to be tied down by a wage. Because he couldn't get far enough away from where he'd started, and there had been days when he'd worked from dawn to earn his dinner, and had set off again directly afterward.

And because, if anyone was looking for him, they'd be looking first among the educated classes, and in the temples, and shrines.

"But those kinds of jobs, people depend on you to stay there. And I didn't want to stay." He looked around the kitchen; the stone oven where he made his meals, the plants in the window pots, the counter, the cupboards. "I never wanted to stay anywhere, until I came here." 

He turned back to Arai, listening so hard, soaking in the words as if Mori were telling him the secrets to everything, and he realized--he'd already known, but suddenly he understood, deep in his guts and bones--that what this young man desired more than anything was a home.

And he could find that, Mori felt. It was entirely within Arai's capability, to find himself a home. He just had to believe it was attainable, for him.

"It took a long time. And I had to give up everything I'd had. But I'm better off now. I found a place where I can make the life I want. And if you work hard, you can do that too. With all your jobs in the village, you can find out what you enjoy, what you're good at. What makes you happy."

"Start all over, huh. Not worry so much, about who I was before?"

"I think who you are now is the most important thing. And you get to decide who that is. It's not a chance everyone gets."

Arai turned this over carefully, in the concentrated, deliberate way he had.  
"You don't think that, if I came from a bad place, I might be a bad person?"

For once, Mori didn't think this was anything anyone had told him. He'd taken it from his dreams, possibly from Mizuko-chan's words, and drawn a logical--if erroneous--conclusion on his own.

"I can see for myself, that you aren't. I don't think where you're from matters."

"And if I used to be a bad person?"  
Mori remembered Onuma suddenly, the man who drifted along with the river, rescued lost travelers, and patched them up. _"You might say I'm working off a debt,"_ he had told Mori, on the day they first met. How he'd done some selfish things, a long time ago, and now he atoned for that.

"Then I'd say you're making up for it now, by being a very good person."

"Hm." Arai nodded, but with a small shadow of doubt in the turn of his mouth, suggesting he wanted to think it through some more, before he'd be convinced.

Then he set down his cup, and looked toward the window. "It's really late. Guess we should get back to bed, huh." He glanced over at Mori. "Think you'll sleep okay, now?"

"I'll be fine." The spell of the dream was broken, and the chaotic, thoughtless longings he'd awakened with had been retired by a dose of solid reason, and prudence. 

Arai needed to find his own path, for his own sake. What he did not need was someone clinging selfishly, trying to spare him the work that everyone had to do, in finding their way.

One day, this person would find his strength, and find himself a name. And he would value it all the more, for having won it fairly, by his own merit. For Mori to intervene just to spare him that struggle, would be criminally unfair. In the end, it would make him worse than the people who begrudged Arai any help. For at least those people, inadvertently or not, had taught him self-reliance.

 

Mori held to this belief, held on to it tightly, for that night and all the days that passed, after Arai rode back to the village, in Fukuo-san's cart. The young man had waved to him as they rolled away, and Mori stood in the clearing and waved back, until they were out of sight. 

And then after a long while, his hand fell to his side, and he just stood. Surrounded by a sudden quiet, and a profound, palpable emptiness that was all too familiar.

Only then did he realize, how Arai's company had pushed the quiet and the emptiness away for awhile. Like the glow of a lamp, pushing all the shadows to the corners of a room. Now that they were closing in again, Mori was reminded of how long he'd lived with them, without ever being aware of it.

He'd accepted silence and solitude, as the price for this second life of his. He'd accepted them the moment he'd accepted that his former life was finished, completely. That there was no use ever looking back, because there was nothing at all for him to go back to.

It had seemed fitting, that he would be alone. That friendships and families, and all those close personal bonds between people, were for others. Not for him. He'd been raised on the understanding that his life was meant for service. Service to the temple, to his cousin, and the city his cousin would some day govern. It was an understanding as much a part of him as the air he breathed, the food he ate, the shape of his own face in a mirror.

And although those services may have been rendered null and void, when he'd been arrested and sentenced, and then inexplicably freed, that sense of responsibility had carved too deep a channel in him to be so easily left behind. If anything, it was merely a matter of swapping one code of discipline for another.

In his new life, service was owed to the second chance he'd been given. He avoided personal bonds out of responsibility to the safety of himself and others. And since he'd never before compared his life to other peoples'; never compared what they had to what he didn't, it hardly made sense to start doing it once he was on his own.

But then somewhere, he felt something had changed. Maybe it came from the routine and reassurance of the cottage. Maybe it came from having accomplished what he'd set out for: making the life he wanted, making a haven for himself in the world.

Or maybe it was the fox that had changed him. It had been safe to form a bond with the fox, because the creature could never be harmed by association with him. It would never ask difficult questions of him, and no one else would ever think to interrogate it. Mori had shared his food first, and his trust, and over time, without even knowing it, he'd become devoted.

The fox, he realized, had been the first bond of his life made entirely without reservation. And like a door which, once opened, could never be closed, Mori could not relinquish that experience. He'd found contentment, happiness, companionship with it, all things he'd never been conscious of lacking before.

Perhaps that discovery was what had prompted his advice to Arai. To find what he was good at, what made him happy. For all the difficulty and bleakness of life after the fox had left, Mori was coming to understand that he would never give up what he'd learned from it. 

Though Mori couldn't promise he'd do it all again, knowing how it would turn out. Being alone never took an effort before. With the fox gone and Arai returned to the village, Mori was finding that it did take effort now. It was an effort, finding contentment by his wood stove in the evenings, with only the crackling of the logs for company. He'd start whittling on a bowl or a wooden plate, only to find there was something missing in the shape; he'd dig and chisel away at it, but it was like walking and walking toward a distant point that never seemed to get any closer. After awhile, he couldn't see the point in the work, and would set it aside.

**

Sometimes, when it was so quiet he could hear the ticking of the snow on the window shutters; stillness like a cold weight against his eardrums, he'd pull up a cushion and try talking to the anemone on the ledge, or the tomatoes in the kitchen. He'd tell them about the weather outside, the icicles hanging from the porch and eaves. He talked about the forest in summer, the giant ferns at the base of huge ancient tree trunks. He'd never seen trees so broad and high, until he came here.

Probably due to the lack of sunlight, on endless dark days during the winter storms, the anemone's petals began to droop and fall, and the tomato plant grew no more fruit buds. Mori trimmed them both back, and any time the sun was out, he made sure to set them, and the parsley and onion plants, where they'd get the most of it.

"I think you liked it better with my friend looking after you," he told the plants. "I'm not much of a substitute, I know."

The plants sat without answering, under the high pale winter sun.


	14. Chapter 14

The end of Mori's old life came like this: on the highest bridge of the city, near the northern gate, sitting on the railing with the first rays of the rising sun at his back, and the river deep and dark and far below. Readying himself to jump.

He knew he hadn't much time. He'd escaped from his cell during the guard change, pulling himself up to the window with the silk sash he'd been supposed to hang himself with, and squeezing through the tight space between the bars and the plaster.

First, he had run for the city gate. Climbing back fences, skidding through narrow dark alleyways, until he came to the riverbank. There he slid down the levee, to the water's edge, and ran as hard and fast as he could.

He hadn't any sort of plan when he escaped the jail, beyond getting out. His plan following that, was to avoid being seen. Both plans worked better than he had any right to expect, until he reached the high bridge, and saw the parapets of the northern gate rising in the distance, and realized there was no way he would make it out.

A man leaving the city gates before sunrise would be marked by the guards. A man leaving the gates before sunrise barefoot, wild-eyed, and wearing torn and stained prison clothes wouldn't even make the road.

He'd sat on the bank for a minute or so, head between his knees, catching his breath and weighing his options.

Option one involved trying to run for the gate anyway, or hiding until he could put together some manner of disguise. Which was bound to end up with him being caught, and hauled back to jail with considerably more roughness than when he'd first been taken in, and then executed on schedule, shortly thereafter.

Seeing as his entire goal had been to avoid public execution, Mori did not care for this option at all.

Option two. He looked up at the high wood girders of the bridge overhead. Option two wasn't great; in fact, it was terrible. But with no other choice, Mori thought he'd far rather die on his own terms.

It was too bad, he thought, as he trudged up the bridge, with a resignation both nervous and morbidly wry, that he hadn't composed his death poem in his cell. He'd been convinced--right up until the final verdict came in--that they would search the evidence, listen to his character witnesses, and reach the obvious conclusion that he was innocent.

He had failed to account for the strength of Megumi-sama's desire to be rid of him, though. The items he was supposed to have stolen had been hidden very well, with the right things turning up to implicate him--not too neatly, but just enough to uphold suspicion. It was convenient, that the girl he was supposed to have hurt was beaten into a coma, and even more convenient that a braided hemp cord he'd been missing for days, just happened to have been dropped at the scene. He didn't personally think the letter found on the alleged dead spy was that well forged, but the paper and ink matched those in his writing box.

Speaking of paper and ink....

Mori sighed. It was just as well no one would be able to read his death poem. He was clearly terrible at improvising.

But how was one supposed to prepare for a moment like this? He looked out over the trees and rooftops of the city, barely visible in the gray chill, and waited for it to sink in, that this was the last sight he'd ever see. 

Not bad for a last sight, was all he could think.

_Gray fog before dawn...._

Everyone said first lines were important, but Mori had never been any good with them. He always had to pore over them a long time, and usually go back once he had the rest, and redo them. But he didn't have much time. He'd have to go with what he had.

_A stone drops...._

The stone being him, obviously. He was straddling the rail now, looking down at the water. Would he really drop like a stone? Come to think of it, he probably should have found a big stone to tie to himself first, to make sure he'd stay down.

He wondered if he'd panic, at the last minute. With his lungs full of water, suffocating. It would be instinctive, to claw his way toward the surface, wouldn't it? Unless he was stunned. Or broke his neck, when he hit the water. That wasn't a bad thing to hope for.

Looking up to the trees again, he swung his other leg over. The last sight of his life. Last moments. Last chance. He felt a stinging in his right foot, where he'd cut it running. But in a very short while, that wouldn't matter anymore.

He did not think about how he was only sixteen years old. How he'd never fallen in love, never attended a sumo match, never seen the sunrise from a mountaintop. He did not think about the letter he hadn't finished, to his cousin. (He was no more prompt at letter-writing than poetry.)

He couldn't think on any of those things, because then he might be tempted to hesitate. And if he was to die in a grownup, dignified manner, there couldn't be any hesitation. Hesitating might well see him on the execution ground that afternoon, and Mori wasn't sure he could be either grownup or dignified, being crucified upside-down.

He also didn't want to be a ghost. He didn't want to wander around forever with a grudge against those who'd accused him. Ghosts had caused all manner of trouble in his life, and the ones with grudges were the worst. He needed to forgive everyone before he died, and make sure his heart was peaceful.

He really wished he'd thought this through when he'd had the chance.

It was easy to forgive his cousin; Mitsukuni had been on a retreat to the south for several weeks, and knew nothing of Mori's arrest, or the trial. So he was free to imagine how Mitsukuni would never believe the accusations, would see right through the fabricated 'evidence', and would very likely do all he could to clear Mori's name, once he returned. Of course that would be too late to do Mori any good, but it was the principle of the thing, that mattered.

He could forgive his teachers, the head priest, and everyone else at the temple too. They would all be saying prayers for his soul, regardless, and he was liable to need all he could get.

And he could forgive Megumi-sama. It really wasn't hard. She was only protecting her family, and she'd always been convinced Mori was a threat to the succession. Come to think of it, he probably could have saved a lot of trouble for everyone, if he'd appreciated just how much a threat she thought he was, and made a greater effort to ease her worries on the matter.

Seeing the first kiss of gold on the gate parapets, Mori knew he had to cut the forgiving short and hope for the best. His poem needed one more line, and then he had to jump.

He looked at the trees, the clotheslines hung between the houses. He looked at the bridge railing; red flaking paint beneath his fingers. He took his last deep breaths of damp morning air, fragrant with early spring, and the green soggy smell of the river.

_...The river stands, still._

It didn't quite work as a last line, since rivers were supposed to flow, but the problem--and the reason he would never end up fixing that line--was that the river had in fact, completely stopped moving.

Mori stared down at the water between his knees, wondering if it were a trick of the light, or his own overwrought mind. But even as he gazed upstream, his eyes persisted in telling him that what had moments before been a rippling ribbon of water, was now frozen in place. The curls and eddies of the currents were all present, but motionless. A large tree branch, which had been slowly bobbing down toward him, was stuck mid-bob. 

And it was silent. The gurgle of water, the splashing, all the atmospheric noise of a river which one took for granted, it was suddenly gone.

Before Mori quite had a chance to process this however, the woman showed up.

He first assumed she was a ghost, since she'd appeared out of nowhere next to him. And then he turned and looked at her, and concluded she must be mad as well.

"You sure you really want to do that?" She sat on the railing at his side, wearing a red sack-shaped garment that stopped at her knees, leaving her bare legs free to swing back and forth over empty space. Her black hair hung razor-straight above her eyebrows, and straight along the back of her neck and her jaw. Her lips were brightly rouged, and there was something all around her eyes that made the lids dark, like a raccoon's eyes.

Her eyes were even stranger, though. Not black, or dark brown, or light brown, like most people he'd ever known. The pupils were black, but the irises were a smoky non-color, not really gray, not really black. Like someone had dropped a speck of ink into a spoonful of water. 

And the way those eyes were looking at him, Mori had to wonder if jumping off the highest bridge of the city was really the worst problem he could have today.

"I'm sorry," he answered. "Is there some reason I shouldn't?"

The woman smiled with her bright red lips, showing a lot of bright white teeth behind them. "Well." She flicked her gaze down to the river, and then back up at him, a look more uncomfortably direct than anyone had ever given him before. "For starters, hitting that water is going to hurt like a bitch."

"I expected it to." Mori hadn't come to this without _some_ consideration, after all.

"And," the woman went on, as if he hadn't spoken, "there's nothing saying you'll die anytime soon. You could break your neck, or your spine, and just float awhile. And you know, if you float...." Here she turned and gestured over her shoulder at the downstream side of the bridge. "There are a dozen fishermen who line up on the banks here, at dawn, to catch their breakfast. One of them is bound to pull you in."

"Damn," Mori mumbled to himself. "Knew I should have found a stone."  
"Funny you should mention stones." The woman gave him a disquieting look out of the corner of her dark-smudged eye.

"Beg pardon?"

"Eh, nothing you need to worry about now." She waved the topic off, and then reached down to hike the hem of her sack-shaped outfit up to her pale thigh, where Mori spotted a tight red band of silk, before snapping his eyes away quickly, with respect to modesty. Though whose modesty, it was hard to say; the woman didn't even notice.

"Care for a drink?" A flat silver bottle dangled in his vision, and Mori shook his head.  
"Thank you, no." Curiosity had him glancing back soon though, to see the woman tip the bottle to her mouth, and then swallow, with a shivery wince.

"So. Seeing as this is a frankly terrible option," she went on, waving the bottle out to indicate the halted, silent river. "Supposing I offer another?"

Which told him she wasn't a ghost. Ghosts didn't criticize his choices, they just delivered messages, or asked him to do things. Ghosts also never offered to share from their liquor flasks, he remembered.

"You mean a bargain?" Mori had read enough about bargains with spirits and strange people just like this, to be extremely wary now. There were worse things than public execution, and one of those was a bad otherworldly contract.

"You might call it that."  
"I think I'd like to know the terms first, if that's all right. No offense." Though it probably wouldn't do much good. Bad bargains had a way of developing loopholes, from what he'd learned.

The woman looked at him a moment, that same uncomfortable, penetrating stare as before, and then threw her head back, laughing. "Oh, you are something. You had me worried with that poem, but I think you might do, anyway." She leveled a short, red-lacquered fingernail at him. "That stubbornness, you'll need that."

"I was just being prudent," Mori said, thinking it would be supremely immature to pout at a time like this. Even if the woman was given to blunt personal remarks, and was old enough to know better. But no, he could be the bigger person, here. 

And then he thought further. "What poem?"

"Oh no, I'm sure it was a respectable effort, considering all you have on your mind." Which was a backhanded compliment if he'd ever heard one, and the woman clearly knew it, by the twinkling sidelong look she gave him. "Though I can't help but think, given time, you could do better."

Mori figured it would be useless, but he tried anyway. "I don't mean to contradict, but maybe you have me confused with someone else? I haven't written any poems in ages."

"It's just the first line, really. _'Grey fog before dawn.'_ The second line is quite nice, but the first. A bit prosaic, don't you think? First lines, those are important, you know."

Maybe it was something about being resigned to death, that stripped away one's ability to be shocked, Mori thought. Or maybe he was so shocked he just couldn't feel it. He stared out at the suspended river. The treetops, still barely touched with the first light of the sun. He felt like they'd been talking quite awhile, but nothing at all had changed around them

"I'm not dreaming," he said, just to make sure.  
"Not in the sense you mean, no."

Mori decided to let the hair-splitting pass, for now. "I didn't fall in and die accidentally, did I? I mean, this isn't the afterlife."  
"It isn't your afterlife."

Semantics, Mori thought. "You don't want to give me time just to make a better poem, do you?" Because really, he couldn't guarantee it would be worth the trouble.

"You can use the time for that, if you like. Though there are lots more interesting things you could do."

And surely here was where the bargaining started. In all those stories, the unlucky hero was always tempted by the things he wanted, first. Then it went all horribly downhill from there.   
"You mean, things you want me to do." 

Because there was nothing Mori wanted, particularly. Except to not be crucified upside-down on the outskirts of the city. He'd already let go of the world, and forgiven all the people he'd meant to. All the ones he could think of, anyway. He was, just as he'd always been told he should be; inasmuch as he was capable of being, free of desire.

"I'm not saying it will be easy. You'll have to start with nothing. You'll have nothing but yourself to depend on, every step. And it will be a long road."

But this didn't matter to Mori, so much as the terms. He wanted to be clear on those. "Do I have to kill anyone?"

"Do you want to kill someone?" The woman raised a disconcertingly amused eyebrow at him.  
"No. Of course not. Not ever."

"Then don't kill anyone," she shrugged.  
"Are you coming back for my soul, later?" This happened in the stories a lot.

To his annoyance, the woman giggled. "What on earth would I want with your soul?" 

Mori didn't think it was very dignified of a demon, or otherworldly bargainer, or _whatever_ , to go around making fun of people. But apparently, this entity either hadn't learned the etiquette, or chose to ignore it. He thought the latter might well be the case; she seemed like the sort who would cheerfully flout all the etiquette and traditions.

"Well then what _do_ you want with me," he blurted, exasperation finally wearing a frayed patch in his own dignity.

"Patience, Nakamiya Shinobu," she said, with a sudden softness. "You'll have to do better than that, at keeping your temper."

But that use of his name cooled Mori's impatience quicker than anything. It was the name everyone knew him by, had always known him by, but it wasn't his real name. The only people who knew that, were the head priest and Mori, himself. 

Though shouldn't this person know it? Hadn't she plucked the first line of his death poem right out of his head?

"It's up to you, to decide whether to use that name," she answered, looking calm and level at him now. "It was kept secret for a reason. Though it didn't keep you safe. Changing your name didn't change you." With a small smile, and tilt to her head, she added, "Lucky for me."

Mori sighed, and eyed the long drop below him. Things had been very hard for him lately. He was too tired for riddles.

"I'll tell you this." The woman crossed her legs at the knees, taking on a purposeful air. "Having your death on this city's conscience will cause no end of trouble. That's the first reason for my offer. Secondly, I think you'll be a lot more useful alive, than dead. You have it in you to do interesting things."

"Useful to whom?" The woman was right; Mori was stubborn. Pedantic, even. He knew it, he'd just never been able to help it.

"I think if you stop looking on this as a demonic bargain, it will be simpler for both of us. Consider it a chance to live the way you want to. Go and make your choices, as they suit you."

"That's all?"  
"It's more than you appreciate, now. I think you will appreciate it, once the condition of this arrangement begins to impose itself."

Ah-hah. So there was a condition involved. "And what's that?"

The woman leveled that colorless unwavering stare on him again. "Once you leave, you can never come back."

"Because I'll be caught." That seemed more like common sense, than anything.

"Because this life of yours is over,” the woman corrected. “That's how you have to think, from now on."

"So..." Mori had to stop and ponder this a moment. "Even if I were pardoned?"

"Even then."

"Even if they asked me to come back?" Not that it was ever likely, but Mori thought he should make sure.  
"You cannot return. It's important that you are resolved on this."

And because the woman was no longer teasing, or amused, or smiling unnervingly at him, Mori gave this condition all the due and sober consideration he could pull together on short notice.

But really, all the consequences he could think of were no different than if he'd jumped in the river and drowned. The same people would grieve, and he'd never see his home, his teachers, or his cousin again. And he'd already been resolved on giving all that up.

Although he supposed it would be different having to live out his life with that knowledge, as opposed to dying with it. In fact, from that point of view, it looked like he would be paying for his freedom after all, with more or less the type of moral conundrum he'd expected from this sort of bargain.

It was weirdly reassuring, knowing there was a concrete price for the deal. The question was, could Mori keep to that condition? Could he go out into the world alone, with nothing to depend on but himself, and truly never look back? Was he really up to that challenge?

In the end, it was curiosity that did him in. Or saved him, depending on how one looked at it. All his life, he'd been testing himself. Testing his mettle, his endurance, against every task that was given to him. He'd wanted to make sure he'd be ready, when the time for his purpose came around. He'd wanted to prepare as best he could, for what would one day be expected of him. No one had ever been quite clear on what would be expected of him, just that it would be a lot.

So now he wondered, after all his tests and hard work, could he manage a future like this?

Well. He'd never find out if he were dead. All he could do, was accept.

"Okay. I'll go."  
"Splendid!" the woman cheered, raising her flask. "Good choice."

Mori climbed off the bridge railing, and dusted the paint flakes from himself. "How do I get through the gate, though?"

"The way I understand it, people normally walk, correct?"

Mori decided that as a first step to his new life, he was not going to get flustered by other people's sarcasm. "There are guards. That's why I didn't keep running in the first place."

"And right you were," the woman nodded. "But they won't be a problem for you, now."  
Mori took in the river, the treetops as still as a woodblock print, and the suspended sunrise. "It's not going to stay like this, forever, is it?"

"Do you know the place on the northern road, where the river bends back?"

"You mean after the hill, past the rice fields?" That was a good hour's walk, if he remembered correctly.  
The woman nodded. "After you cross the river there, you should be careful who sees you."

"But what about my clothes?"  
The woman turned on the railing, flashing her bare knees at him. "I could probably take care of that." She pouted her lips thoughtfully. "But you didn't seem terribly keen on the idea of bargains, before. "

"Sorry. Nevermind." A good washing in the river would probably get most of the dye out of his garments. And he'd have to deal with the rips in the cloth as best he could. As for shoes....well. He should just be grateful it was spring.

Mori guessed he was as ready to go, as he was ever going to be. He wondered if he was supposed to thank this woman for intervening, now. He could very well want to take that thanks back, by the end of the day. And he had a strong hunch she hadn't done any favor particularly for him, anyway.

Finally, he settled on, "It was interesting to meet you. Can I expect to see you again?"  
The woman chortled, not surprisingly, and then gave a carefree shrug. "Who can say how things will work out?"

"True." Mori bowed politely, and said, "Goodbye, then," before turning and walking down the bridge, to find his new life.


	15. Chapter 15

Every so often, sometimes just for something to do, Mori went and followed the stream behind the orchard, looking for the water spirit, to remind it of the short string of amber beads he'd offered it, as thanks for helping wash the fox last spring.

And every time, Mizuko-chan would tell him not yet, and to keep the beads for later. Since the spirit never specified when later was, or what precisely it was waiting on, Mori had to continue asking at periodic intervals.

It was a bright morning in mid-December, when Mori headed to the back of the orchard to track it down once again, only to find it waiting for him right at the head of the irrigation inlet.

"The person at the river is sick."

"Onuma-san? What's the matter with him?" Every time Mori thought he was past being taken aback by the spirit's abrupt pronouncements, Mizuko-chan proved him wrong again.  
"Cold," the spirit answered.

Living by the constant damp chill of the river like he did, Mori was surprised this was the first time he'd heard of Onuma getting sick.  
"I'll go see him, if I can get through. How is the snow, at the hill?"

"Shallow, along the creek," the spirit answered. "It gets deeper, where everything goes down."  
"And from the river, to the village, how is that?" Mori had found Mizuko-chan to be very useful at giving snow reports, and thought since he was heading out to see Onuma anyway, he might well take the river detour down to the village, afterward.

"The snow is melting, along the banks. The river runs warm, this season."

"All right. I'll have to put a pack together, and then I'll come back. Oh," Mori remembered. "would you like those brown beads now?"

"Do you have them?"  
"Sure, right here." Mori dug the beads from his pocket, and held them out for the spirit, who rose up to stare closely at them.

"Not yet," the spirit decided, after a few moments. "Keep them with you."

Which Mori had pretty much come to expect, by now. "I'll do that. And I'll set out for Onuma's as soon as I can."

"Don't swim in the pool," the spirit advised him, already retreating up the stream. "I'm cleaning it."

"I'll be careful," Mori promised, since the spirit didn't differentiate between purposeful and accidental 'swimming', and would be equally put out of countenance by either.

*****

"Eh, Morinozuka, come in, my monkish friend." Onuma greeted him raspily, from the sheltered side deck of the river barge which served as his home. He was bundled in a quilt, with a scarf wrapped around his neck and head, and Mori thought quite honestly, he looked terrible.

"You should stay inside, with that cough," Mori warned, pulling himself up on the deck platform, by the wooden rail. "Do you need me to bring Kamio-sensei to look at you?"

"No, it's not that bad. I'm through the worst of it, anyway. Come, come in and get warm."

Mori slipped his boots off on the deck, and ducked through the doorway after Onuma, murmuring, "Pardon the intrusion," before pulling the door shut behind him.

Contrary to his worries, the place was plenty warm inside, since Onuma had sealed his windows, and pulled his sliding walls, to close the space down to one small room, with his kotatsu in the center.

Mori hung his coat and scarf on the wall hook, and shrugged off the pack of provisions he'd brought. It was heavy, since he hadn't known what exactly his neighbor might require, and so had packed a bit of everything.

"I have tea for that cough, a vapor rub, if you want. Soup, poultice-herbs, something for fever, compress cloths--," he dug a little deeper in the pack, "--dried plums..."

"Morinozuka-sama is an angel of mercy," Onuma grinned. "And I would be eternally grateful if you didn't mind sharing some of that tea."

"I don't mind," Mori answered, "if Onuma-sama would lay down and rest, for now."

Mori fetched the teapot off the kotatsu, and took it out to the porch, to wash it. Onuma's porch was covered and screened by bamboo, which cut the breeze coming off the river, and allowed for easy cleaning of everything, at a washtub set on a broad wooden bench.

"Would you like me to heat up the bath, while I'm here?" Mori asked, coming back inside.  
"Eh, don't bother," Onuma waved from his reclining spot, on a stack of cushions bundled up to the kotatsu. "I can't imagine getting my clothes off. Unless Morinozuka-sama is interested in climbing in too?" he smiled.

"Thank you, but I've already bathed," Mori replied. Over time, he and Onuma had come to this unspoken arrangement, wherein Onuma periodically made scandalous propositions he didn't actually mean, and Mori turned him down without batting an eyelash. 

He supposed it was more a peculiar affirmation of trust between them, than anything. When a person lived out alone, as far as they did, maintaining good faith with one's distant neighbor was an issue of serious importance. For whatever reason, Onuma didn't express it with much seriousness, but Mori was willing to humor him.

"Ah, well,” Onuma sighed. “Then I guess I'll have to take solace in soup."

"It's really more of a broth," Mori amended. "I didn't know if you'd like anything added."

"Please, you've troubled yourself too much already--." He broke off, coughing a few times into his sleeve and when he'd caught his breath, said, "Sorry. I'm in no shape to be picky."

Mori gave him a sharp, concerned look, but said nothing, busying himself with the tea instead, and once that was steeping, putting a bowl of broth on to heat.

"Is there anything else you need done?" he asked. "How is your drinking water?" 

Since the silty river water was laborious to purify, Onuma mainly relied on clever solutions to trap snow and rain water, for drinking and food preparation. He had a rain gutter that ran the perimeter of his roof, emptying into barrels at various points, and then several more barrels along the fore and aft decks of the barge. The downside, was that in winter months, the water in the barrels often froze, which meant the ice had to be chipped out and thawed over a fire, or left to thaw indoors, on its own.

"Not frozen solid, luckily," Onuma said. "Had to get out yesterday, and clean some leaves out of the gutter. Good thing the sun stayed out."  
"I'm sorry I didn't know earlier," Mori told him. "Mizuko-chan only told me this morning, that you were unwell."

"Not to worry. I've hardly seen her in weeks. Don't know what she's so occupied with. Usually this time of year, she wants to hang around and make suggestions about my housekeeping," he said, with a rattling chuckle.

"Please, enjoy your tea," Mori gestured. "I was thinking I'd drop by the village, later, is there anything I can pick up for you?"

Onuma was sipping his tea with his eyes closed, leaving Mori free to note his washed-out complexion, and the faint purple smudges around his eyes. He'd taken his glasses off, presumably to lay down, and Mori thought he looked different, without the gleam of silver rims and glass. Like taking them off had taken some of the spark off his personality.

"Oh, this is good," he breathed, and then opened his eyes. "And thanks for the offer, but I'm all stocked up. Made it down there last week, before I came down with this plague."

"Did you notice anyone sick over there? Maybe you caught something going around the village." Mori remembered Arai's story, about the contagious flu that laid out so many people last spring, and felt a vague anxiety at the thought.

"Well it's that time of year, isn't it? With the nasty weather, and all." Onuma sniffled, and wiped his nose discreetly, with a handkerchief. "Didn't notice any bad sickness, though. Not like last spring..." He shook his head. "I guess you missed that, but the place was like a ghost town for a bit."

"Someone told me about it," Mori said, and then realized he hadn't talked to Onuma at all since Arai had come to stay. "The person Arai-san is looking after, have you met him?"

"You mean that mystery kid?" Onuma grinned and shook his head. "Haven't met him, but I've heard plenty. How'd you run into him? Is he as weird as they say?"

Mori frowned into the soup pot to mask an unexpected flare of irritation at the comment. He knew Onuma wouldn't disparage anyone on purpose, but Mori was still hard put not to take offense on Arai's behalf. It was those sorts of casual remarks which had doubtless contributed to his sometimes painful diffidence, and could so easily undermine the encouragement Mori had tried to give him.

"He's not weird at all." Mori ladled some broth into a bowl for Onuma, and pushed it across the table. "Arai-san sent him up to help me with the tilling, awhile ago. He's an outstanding worker, and very bright. I'd trust him anywhere on the property."

Onuma murmured thanks for the soup, and took the bowl up in both hands, sipping and glancing at Mori over the rim. After a few quiet moments, he set the bowl down. 

"I feel like I owe you an apology. I was unaware this was someone you held in such high regard."

Even without his glasses, Onuma was still disconcertingly perceptive. And Mori realized he may have erred, with such an outspoken defense. He had no personal claim on the young man after all, and the way he'd been brought up, it was presumptuous to go defending someone without having a mutually--and more to the point, publicly--recognized bond with them.

It was particularly presumptuous, and ill-considered on Mori's part, to imply that he would take the side of a relative stranger, over the opinion of his own neighbor. People were sensitive about loyalties, and if there was one thing his fatal run-in with Megumi-sama had taught him, it was that it was a very bad idea to let misunderstandings develop in that respect.

"Please," Mori ducked his head, thinking it was a time for formal manners. "Of course there's no apology necessary. Onuma-san is an excellent judge of character, and I would never want to imply otherwise. I only had the impression that this person's--ah--better attributes, were not appreciated by many people. And I--erm--felt that they should be."

Onuma squinted curiously at him, and then sat up and plucked his glasses off the kotatsu, hooking them over his ears. "Oh thank God," he said after a moment, with a slow grin sharpening his features. "There for a minute, I was afraid you were blushing. Surely that would be the end of the world, eh?"

"What?" Mori jerked his head up, startled.  
"Although maybe it is the end of the world, if there's someone on this earth you'll admit to liking."

"I'm sorry--please don't think--that is...." Mori trailed off, flummoxed, and Onuma erupted into congested laughter, which snagged into a red-faced coughing fit. 

This, Mori was equipped to handle. He poured more tea, and came around the table, to pat Onuma on the back, saying, "Here, take it easy."

Onuma waved him back with one hand, muffling the coughs in his sleeve, and yet still managing to keep that wicked, irresponsible grin in his watering eyes.

"Oh," he gasped, once the coughing died down. "Oh, that was worth it, just for the look on your face." He clapped Mori on the arm a few times, in a friendly fashion, then took up his tea and drank earnestly.

"Well. I'm glad I could do something, to make you feel better," said Mori, trying to recover their usual banter to relieve his sudden, rather extraordinary awkwardness.

"Hey, listen. Seriously." Onuma looked up at him, with a more sober expression. "If you say the kid's all right, then I take your word for it. It's the first I've heard you mention trusting somebody, that's all."

"I trust people." Mori thought it was only fair to point this out, since Onuma had brought it up. "There's Fukuo-san. Arai-san. Hito-sama. And I hope you know I trust you." 

_As far as the door to my bedroom_ , his mind added, completely inappropriately, and Mori stamped down on the thought before it could get away and start making dangerous comparisons. There had been no recurrence of that one disturbing dream, the night before Arai's last day at the cottage. And Mori was definitely not thinking about that. Ever.

"You realize that just proves my point," Onuma winked. "It's a mighty small list, of very good people." Then he looked thoughtful. "Say. The two of you didn't run across Mizuko-chan, by chance?"

Seeing an opportunity to reach safer ground, Mori latched on. "It seems she found him on her own. Startled him into the stream, when he was working."

Onuma blinked. "Seriously? How did he take it?"

"Better than most people have, I imagine. Once he got over the surprise, he seemed happy to talk to her."

"Huh." He looked unconcerned, but Mori thought he caught an undercurrent of something else, there. Though by now, he was well accustomed to Onuma processing things behind a careless-looking expression, and bringing up his conclusions in his own time.

"You know, there was something I should have thought to ask you about," Mori went on. "It was something Mizuko-chan mentioned. About lost places, in the forest. I wasn't sure what she meant by that."

Onuma lifted an eyebrow. "Was she talking about the kid, then?"

"I guess....she seemed to know where he was, before he was found. And no one in the village has figured out where he might have come from, yet. But all she said, was that the place was lost."

"Well. You and I both know, there are plenty of spots like that in the forest. Could be anywhere."

"She said it was past....her boundary, if that's what you call it. I was guessing the east side, past the village, since that's where they found him."

"Might be." Onuma was nodding along, but Mori had the feeling the man was studying him, more than the issue at hand. And he might have brought this up, except that he had other questions.

"I was wondering, too. Have you ever found anyone like that? Someone who couldn't remember how they were lost?"

"Not as bad as that poor kid, from what I hear. Is it true, that he draws a blank about everything?"

"Everything about his past. He says the first thing he remembers, is Kamio-sensei's clinic, back in May."

"May?" Onuma frowned. "Didn't they find him—"

"In April, yes."

"And you believe him." Mori knew it wasn't a question, so much as an affirmation of credibility; that if Mori believed the boy's story, then the matter was settled for Onuma. He was surprised to find how much that relieved him.

For some while, Onuma directed a deep, distant stare into his teacup, and Mori sat by quietly, waiting to hear the man's thoughts.

"I've come across people in shock," he finally said, in a slow, musing tone. "They come around eventually, but sometimes you'll find somebody who was just scared senseless out there. Some say they don't remember what it was that scared them. Maybe it was their imagination. Maybe it was something they really saw. One fellow..."

Onuma paused to take a long drink from his teacup, setting it back down in a drawn-out gesture that Mori might have called reluctant, if that made sense.

"This guy," he shook his head. "Said he was out chopping firewood. He said the deadwood was pretty thin on the ground, so he decided to go chop one small tree, just to tide him over awhile. Not saying I believe him--for all I know he'd been poaching forest trees for ages, but that's what he said." Onuma gave a faintly bitter chuckle.

"Anyway. So he's chopping this tree, and the next thing he knows, it's going dark everywhere. He said it was like the middle of the night just came right out of the trees around him. So dark, it swallowed up all the daylight. And all he knew after that, was that he'd come to, with his axe buried in his own foot."

"It was bad. They had to take the foot off, when I finally got him down to some help." Onuma sighed, and pushed his fingertips up beneath his glasses, rubbing his eyes. "He almost didn't make it."

At first, Mori wasn't sure what to say. It was a chilling story, and he was sure he'd be no less traumatized than Onuma, had he been the one to come upon that unlucky woodcutter. He knew firsthand about terrible things it was impossible to un-see, however much one may wish for forgetfulness. A sight like that was like a ghost one could never entirely placate or put to rest.

"I've seen dark places like that before," he said quietly. "I always wondered, if they were like some ghosts. People who die with a grudge, or full of hatred. They end up like that. And they're dangerous."

Onuma resettled his glasses and looked over at Mori, interested. "A grudge, huh. I've heard of that before. Honestly, I think anybody who goes in those woods and thinks they'll get away with cutting trees is an idiot. But." He sighed and shook his head. "There's no telling some people, I guess."

With that, he drained his teacup, and Mori moved in to refill it. Onuma watched him work, and then said, "Y'know what makes me curious, though."

Mori offered an inquiring, "Hm?" as he checked the level in the teapot.  
"This friend of yours...."

Mori paused with his hand on the lid, and looked up, to see Onuma regarding him levelly.  
"You said Mizuko-chan talked to him?"

"Yeah," Mori nodded. "I think she mistook him for me."

Onuma frowned, and then seemed to be choosing his words carefully. "I'm not saying you're wrong. But in all the time I've known her..."

"Yes?" Mori prompted.

"You're the only other person I've ever known her to show herself to."

"Really?"  
"She's mentioned seeing people before. She's even told me a few times, where to find the lost folks. But they never saw her. I've never heard of anyone else seeing her, except you. And now, this kid."

"There was one other person," Mori reminded him. "The last owner of the cottage. She mistook me for him, when we first met."

"You think that was a mistake? Or maybe she just recognized you as the new owner?"

However many times Onuma had put it to him--granted, it wasn't many--Mori still had trouble with the theory that the property had somehow chosen him for something. He wouldn't deny it had certainly tested him. But until Mori saw his name on a deed, or received other objective, concrete proof, he would continue to assume he was only a temporary custodian of the place. A conscientious squatter, at best.

The way he saw it, any theory was as valid as any other, and Onuma was certainly welcome to his opinion. Though in this case, his opinion opened up some interesting questions about the water spirit, and how much it understood and differentiated between people.

Actually, he realized, Onuma had to be right about Mizuko-chan. If Mori had paid proper attention when Arai met the water spirit, the sequence of events alone would have told him.

First Mizuko-chan had surprised Arai. Then, when Mori and Arai returned together, she was gone. When she reappeared, she straightaway gave Arai that stone. Neither of them had figured out what the stone might be for; so far as they both could observe, it had remained perfectly inert, and Arai appeared exactly the same as he'd been before receiving it.

But the important thing now, was that for whatever reason, Mizuko-chan had decided Arai needed the stone from the moment she first saw him. And when Arai and Mori had stood side-by-side, she'd known which of them to give it to.

And Onuma's next words sealed the matter, essentially.

"One thing I've noticed about Mizuko-chan. She sees a person's character much better than we do. I think she sees their intentions."

"How so?”

"Beats me, how she does it,” Onuma said. “But she told me to look out for a fellow one time, a day before he showed up here. Said he had a cold shadow on him. Never did figure out what she meant by that. Anyway, this stranger shows up on a skiff, and sure enough tries to rob the place."

"What happened?"

"Luckily, I got the drop on him. After that," he gave a vague shrug. "I made sure he didn't cause trouble."

This was interesting to Mori, who would have guessed Onuma would run across trouble now and then, living on the river. But it was the first he'd heard of Onuma actually subduing trouble. 

Given the man's usual attitude, it was a bit hard to imagine him fighting. On the other hand, Onuma was good at keeping what he knew to himself. So anything was possible, really.

Since Onuma didn't seem to be inviting further inquiry on that matter, though, Mori had to leave it be. The man's point was clear, anyway. Mizuko-chan was good at reading people, and (assuming the spirit was in the mood to help), would share relevant knowledge of others.

And the fact that she was willing to speak to Mori, Onuma, and now Arai, was apparently also significant. Though since she hadn't offered any character judgments on any of them, it was impossible to say how.

**

Mori didn't mention the other things Mizuko-chan had noticed about Arai, in that discussion. The observation about the mark the boy didn't have, or that he'd lost his name. There was no particular reason he didn't; it was just that the other topics had led to digressions, and Mori never found his way back to those points. 

He also didn't mention the stone. Not because he doubted Onuma's integrity regarding others' possessions; particularly with respect to the sanctity of a gift from a water spirit. But after having advised Arai to keep it secret, it would be a terrible breach of trust, for Mori to then go revealing the gift to others.

He did file away the detail from Onuma's story about the woodcutter; that vengeful darkness emerging from the trees. Though he wasn't sure how--or even if--that fit into anything. It just reminded him, for some reason, of that one nightmare Arai had suffered, in his first week at the cottage. There was nothing saying the two were connected in any way, only that Mori had plainly heard the boy saying he didn't want to go somewhere, in that dream. In his own mind, he'd pictured a dark and frightening place; an impression which was later reinforced when Arai shared what he recalled of his dreams.

At any rate, the conversation lagged as Onuma's energy waned, and after tidying up and laying out the items he'd brought, Mori urged the man to get some rest, and recover.

"Do you want me to drop by and check on you, on my way back?" he asked, as Onuma settled down, with his glasses off again. 

The answer came with a tired, pale smile. "I'm always happy for an excuse to look at Morinozuka-sama. By all means, come and show me yourself again."

"I won't disturb you, if you're asleep. You'll need your strength, if you intend to keep pursuing me."  
"Ah," Onuma raised a finger, even as his eyes drifted shut. "Knowing I have a chance, that's enough reason to get better."

Mori chuckled, as he headed out the door. "Sleep well."


	16. Chapter 16

After the third time he'd slipped and nearly taken a tumble into the river, Mori admitted to himself he was rushing, and would be wise to slow down before he got hurt. It certainly wouldn't do to break a limb or crack his head out here, on the slick rocks lining the river bank, nor would he fare well after a dunking in the icy water.

Really, he told himself, there was no reason to rush. The village would still be there, regardless of how long it took to reach. And Arai would doubtless be busy at whatever work he was doing these days. Too busy to entertain Mori, which was a fact Mori would do well to keep in mind.

He was just going to drop in on Hito-sama, make sure he was well, and see if he had time to share any wisdom on indoor vegetable cultivation. Then he would stop at the fishmonger's to pick up some fresh trout and salted sardines. After that, he'd go see Arai-san. Pick up the usual staples, thank the man for sending him those socks last time (five pairs of quality wool socks for half a bag of morels. Mori had shaken his head, thinking it was a wonder the man stayed in business). And then maybe, in the course of conversation, he might get some news about how the boy was faring.

There was no reason at all to hurry toward any of this, Mori knew it, and yet he couldn't seem to govern his steps to a more reasonable pace, or shake the feeling of something tugging at him, like the village had developed its own gravity, or Mizuko-chan's stones were lining the river to the village bridge, towing him along on a swift current.

In fact, he was so intent on getting to the village, that when he finally did come in sight of the bridge, climbing the banks so he could cross it, he almost missed the figure sitting huddled at the bridge railing, without a coat or a hat to cut the icy river breeze, crouched with their arms locked around their knees.

The blood on the snow was hard to overlook, though. Mori did a double-take as he passed, and stopped so short his boots skidded in the snow, and he nearly went over.

"Excuse me, do you need help?" He'd turned for the railing automatically, crouching down beside the person, looking for an injury, for the source of the blood splattered over their bare forearms and clothing.

"I'm sorry," the person answered, a young man, and when he raised his white, tear-tracked face from his knees, Mori nearly fell over in shock. 

"I tried," Arai told him. "Really, I did, but I don't think I can do this."

"What happened to you?" Mori went to his knees in the snow, taking Arai's shoulders, patting him down. "Where are you hurt? Can you tell me?"

His eyes had a worrisome glaze to them; they looked huge in his too-white face.  
"I shouldn't have run away, he's gonna be really mad this time. But I had to get it off. I couldn't. Couldn't stand it on me anymore."

"It's all right," Mori told him. "Just listen, okay? I'm going to help you stand up, and take you to Kamio-sensei. Do you think you can walk?"

"I don't--." Arai blinked, long wet eyelashes, and his daze seemed to clear, as he registered Mori kneeling in front of him. "Morinozuka-san? Where did you...." He looked off toward the river, and back at Mori. "How'd you get here?"

Mori reminded himself he needed to stay calm, if he was going to help Arai at all. Snatching the boy up and running with him wouldn't help anything, even though that was the thing he most wanted to do, what every irrational nerve was screaming at him to do.

"I just came up the river, just now. It looks like you've had an accident, can you tell me what happened?" He pitched his voice low and calm, and kept his hands on Arai's shoulders, to help steady them both.

"Oh." Arai looked down at himself, with a miserable resignation slipping in and twisting the shape of his mouth and eyes. "No, I'm not hurt. I'm sorry you had to--." His lips pressed to a thin white line, and Mori could see the sob fighting to break through.

He didn't think. He just leaned forward, caught Arai's forehead against his chest, caught him close, saying, "Then it's all right. There's nothing to be sorry for. If you're not hurt, then it's fine."

"It's not." Arai's voice came muffled by his coat, and bruised-sounding. "Iwasaki-sama, he's not gonna forgive me this time. I did a really bad job for him. I said I'd try harder, but I couldn't help it."

Mori wracked his memory for the name. "Iwasaki. The butcher?" Suddenly, all the clues slotted into place, and Mori felt several tightly drawn muscles go slack.

"Yeah. I've been there a few weeks, but." Arai shuddered, and hunched further over his knees. "I'd give anything not to go back. I know it's not up to me. But still."

Mori pulled back. "You're freezing. Here...." He dragged his coat off his shoulders, and flipped it around, over Arai's, who tried to stop him.

"No, please, it'll get....dirty."

"I can wash it." The blood was not Arai's, it was animal blood. And the blood on the snow, he surmised, had been from Arai's attempts to scrub it off his arms and hands. Mori didn't have to think very hard at all, to conclude that he would've done exactly the same thing.

Out of all the jobs he had taken while traveling, jobs to earn him food, and maybe a bed for a night or two, the one place he had never been able to work, was in a butcher's shop. 

He had walked into one once, exhausted and hungry, in a town where no other work had been on offer. And it had taken no more than a good look around, to get him right back out again. Mori thought it was surely a testament to Arai's tenacity, and his willingness to do any work he was offered, that he had lasted a few weeks.

"Morinozuka-san--" Arai began, and Mori stopped him, with a gentle hand on top of his head.

"It's appropriate, if you call me that when we're in town. But you remember that we're friends, right?"

Arai's eyes widened, and he gave a small nod.  
"So as your friend, I'd like to help you out. Is that okay?"

"Y-yeah. I guess. But what...?"  
"I have an idea." And Mori did; a vague, extremely reckless idea which he earnestly hoped would shape up into a decent plan any moment.

Currently, it consisted of taking Arai out of the village as soon as possible. What he was missing, was a way to do it which wouldn't burn any bridges behind them, and in particular not hurt Arai's reputation in the village.

"Listen, let's get out of this wind, and find somewhere to talk, okay?"

Thankfully, Arai was calming down enough to be more curious than overwrought.   
"Okay," he agreed cautiously. "There's um..." He looked toward the village side of the bridge, and then pointedly looked the opposite direction. "There's a place, over there. C'mon, I'll show you."

**

They sat on an old stone bench off the side of the road, a spot sheltered by pines, near the carved wooden signpost that welcomed travelers to the village. 

Arai was bundled in Mori's coat, looking grave and unhappy, but Mori took some encouragement at seeing a bit of color returning to his cheeks.

"First," Mori explained, "I think you should know, that I believe you did the best job you could. I wouldn't have lasted as long as you did, in that place."

"Iwasaki-sama said I'd get used to it. He said it bothered most people at first, but they get used to it." The boy looked away, adding quietly, "I wish I knew how."

"Some people are suited to do certain jobs. Some aren't. There's no shame in that. However--." 

Mori paused, thinking through the hurdle Arai would have to manage next, and how he could best help him. "I think it would be fair, to Iwasaki-sama, for you to go and apologize, for being unable to work for him. Do you think you can do that?"

"You mean I should go quit, before he can fire me?" Arai said, in a tone suggesting he was an old hand at leaving jobs, either way.

"I think there will be less hard feelings, if Iwasaki-sama can save face."  
"He's gonna yell, anyway."

"Well, then he yells," Mori answered, thinking the man would be rude and boorish to shout at the boy, but that wasn't something Mori or Arai had any control over. "He won't hurt you, and I'll do what I can to distract him."

"What will you do?"

"Ah." Mori felt the edges of a plan coming into shape, realizing he'd probably have to improvise the details. "I'll let him know I came to offer you a different job."

Arai looked puzzled. "You did?"

Possessed by the sudden understanding that he did not want to lie to this person, not ever, Mori made a snap decision. "Yeah. I did. How would you like to come help me build a hothouse?"

**

"What the hell did you go runnin' off for, you crazy kid? I told you lunch was comin' up, we got a beef stew over in the kitchen. You scare the hell outta me when you take off like that, I dunno where you've gone!"

As Arai had predicted, Iwasaki -sama yelled. Though Mori soon realized, it wasn't threatening, angry noise, so much as the noise of a man who yelled as a matter of course. Whether he was upset, excited, or even happy.

"Iwasaki-sama, I'm so sorry, I really am." Arai bowed, with his fists above his knees, in a pose of utter contrition. "Iwasaki-sama has been patient with me, and I'm very grateful, but I'm sorry I'm not a more dependable person. I know I'm a burden on Iwasaki-sama, and his business, even though I've tried to work hard for him. I'm thankful for everything Iwasaki-sama has taught me, and all the good food he's shared, but I'm really very terrible at butchering, and I beg Iwasaki-sama's forgiveness."

Mori further realized that Arai had abject apologies down to an art form.

"Hey, what's this? You're not givin' up on me, are you kid? I told you, lots of folks have a little trouble at first. So you got sick a few times, okay, and yeah, if you don't keep your eyes open when you're choppin' a side of beef you're gonna cut your damn hand off one a these days. And a pig's head, y'know it's nothin' to pass out over...." The butcher trailed off and scratched his bristled chin thoughtfully, and Mori stole a glance at Arai. Still bowing, but looking a little green, he thought.

"But hey, you're a decent worker, for all that. You're young and strong. Got a hell of an arm on you. Who's to say the business won't grow on you, if you just give it a few years?"

"Sorry." Arai answered, in a tiny voice. "Iwasaki-sama is a good boss, I'm very sorry."

The butcher gave a heavy sigh, clearly at a loss, and Mori thought it might be all right to step in.

"Please pardon my intrusion," Mori bowed. "I understand losing your worker is a hardship, and if Iwasaki-sama would permit it, I would like to try and compensate you for the trouble."

"Eh?" Iwasaki looked up, noting Mori for the first time. "Have we met?"

"Sorry. I'm Morinozuka." Offering another bow. "Your employee worked for me a few months ago, and I came to see if I might be able to hire him again."

The man peered at him a moment, before a spark of recognition lit. "Oh yeah, Morinozuka-san. I hear about you from Arai-san, you're that crazy fella, moved into that screwy place uphill, yeah? Good to meet you, welcome to my shop." 

Iwasaki gave a quick bow, and came up chuckling. "I kept forgettin' to tell Arai-san to pass along word, that the wife thinks a lot of your strawberries. She made some preserves back in August, took first prize at the festival."

"Ah. Well. Please give her my congratulations. She must be an excellent cook." Mori hadn't exactly expected the conversation to go this way, but he wasn't about to complain.

Iwasaki patted his aproned paunch, grinning. "Well, y'know, I sure ain't put off by it none. Shame she couldn't fatten this kid up, though," jerking an elbow toward Arai. "God knows she tried."

"Iwasaki-san's food is always delicious," Arai put in meekly, and Mori began to suspect that what made the boy more miserable than anything, was being unable to work for a man who actually seemed to think kindly of him.

"Eh, well," Iwasaki shrugged, and lifted his palms. "So what am I gonna do with you, kid? Sure hate to let you go, but if this fella says he can keep you busy, and you don't wanna stick around here...."

For a second, Arai frowned, looking conflicted. Then he seemed to collect himself and straightened, arms rigid at his sides.

"It's bad to leave on short notice. If Iwasaki-sama wants, I'll stay until the day's work is finished, or until someone else comes to take my place." He turned to Mori then, with a flash of sad regret. "I'm sorry, if that ruins your plans. I didn't think, earlier."

"I understand," Mori nodded, stricken with admiration for Arai's courage, even as his barely-formed hopes were slipping away from him. "It's the right thing to do."

"Whoa, hey, hang on. Don't anybody go canceling no plans. I appreciate what you're trying to do, kid, but if you wanna resign that bad, I don't wanna get in your way."   
Iwasaki then waved off Arai's protesting sound, saying, "Nah, don't worry about it. I got my sister's kid, she's been hounding me to put him to work for months, and I reckon I might as well make her happy. So you go ahead, run to the house and get cleaned up, and tell the wife so long, all right?"

Arai looked between Mori, and the butcher, not quite able to reconcile his sudden fortune. "A-Are you sure, Iwasaki-sama?"

"Sure as I'm gonna be, kid. And no hard feelings, all right? Just make sure you do a good job for this fella."

"Yes sir, thank you sir!" Arai hurried for the back of the shop, without another look back.

The butcher waited until he was well gone, and turned to Mori.  
"So. You hired the kid on before, huh?"

"Actually, Arai-san sent him up to help me, end of October."

"That so," the man nodded. "Then I guess you know, he's got a couple quirks. Doesn't sleep so good. Doesn't eat enough to keep a bird goin', some days. Don't think he takes too good to bein' cooped up. Damn handy around the house, though."

That was twice now, and Mori had to wonder about these mentions of Arai not eating. From what Mori recalled, he'd displayed all the appetite one would expect from a hard-working, healthy young man. He was concerned, but since he'd more than likely see for himself soon enough, he chose to let the matter pass for now.

"I'm glad he found someone good to work for. I understand it's been a challenge for him," Mori said. And then, just to make sure it wouldn't become a problem later, he added, "I would hate to feel like I've deprived Iwasaki-san of his help. If there are any debts your employee has incurred while staying here, I'd like to accept responsibility for them."

"Debts?" Iwasaki folded his arms, and studied the ceiling with a frown. "Can't say as I kept track of any of that. Kid never asked for no favors. The wife talked about gettin' him some clothes, but he wouldn't hear of it. Didn't take up any more space than he had to. Sure didn't make much of a dent in the food bill--not like I reckon that blasted nephew of mine is gonna." He gave a shrug, and looked at Mori. "If I could think of somethin' fair, I'd let you know. But nothin' comes to mind."

Mori was nodding his assent, and thanking the man, when Arai returned to the front of the shop, cleaned up and dressed in his faded red, woolen overshirt and black coat, carrying a cloth-wrapped bundle under his arm.

"Ah--Morinozuka-san? Sorry if you're in a hurry, but um. Iwasaki-san asked if she might be able to talk to you."  
"Oh. Well--," he glanced at the butcher. "If that's all right?"

"I reckoned she'd want a word with you," Iwasaki gave a sly, sharp grin. "Go on back then, if it suits you. Just watch yourself. She might look like a quiet little old lady, but she's a tiger. Got some teeth in her, yet."

"Iwasaki-sama's just teasing, don't worry," Arai told him quietly, on the way back through the butcher's shop, and up the short set of stairs leading to the household proper. "She's really a nice person."

But when Mori first laid eyes on the woman, he stopped dead, absolutely certain he was seeing a ghost.


	17. Chapter 17

She stood in the doorway, graying hair pulled back in a tidy bun; gently smiling, with her hands flat to her perfectly neat kimono--dark brown, with touches of light blue in the embroidery, and peeking from beneath the obi and inner sleeves.

She stood exactly like a woman Mori had known so many years ago, and so very far away. The same smile, the same dress, awakening long-lost memories of mornings in the castle gardens. Afternoon naps in summertime, drifting on the scent of orange blossoms. Soft hands soothing skinned knees. All of the safest, most contented days of Mori's life, he remembered they had centered around the company of his cousin, and his cousin's childhood nurse, and in that moment, facing that woman's near-exact double, Mori felt a disorienting split between the present and a past that suddenly ached, the way a skinned knee ached, only it was his heart that had stumbled and taken the raw scrape.

He might have uttered the name; it hung on the tip of his tongue, ready to fall right out in a stunned whisper, _Sakura-san...?_ But then just in time, he was saved by a hand at his elbow.

"Iwasaki-san, I brought Morinozuka-san here to meet you." Arai guided him forward, and Mori followed him in a bow, and the correct greetings must have come forth from him, but really he had no idea. And then they were trading their shoes for house slippers, while Mori tried to piece himself together.

"Morinozuka-san. Every bit as handsome as they say. And tall, my goodness, like a prince, look at you. Please be careful of our humble doorway. Don't hurt your head."

The woman had a voice as soothing as her smile, but like the nurse he had adored as a small boy, she talked in a gently rambling manner, half to him and half to the room in general.

"When Arai-kun mentioned he was going with his trusted friend, I hoped the young men would let an old woman make a nuisance of herself, so I could meet him."

"Of course I'm honored, to be invited to meet Iwasaki-san," Mori murmured, following her through a cozy, immaculate front room with a wide window looking out on a tiny snowy courtyard. "And thank you for asking me into your lovely home."

"I don't wish to impose on your time too much, I'm sure you have much to do. But Arai-kun showed such an affinity for growing things, and I understand this is an interest that Morinozuka-san shares. So I thought he might enjoy a look at an old lady's poor window garden...."

She led Mori, with Arai following up the rear, past the front room, and into a corner room of the house, with windows lining both walls, and an eye-catching abundance of potted flowers on every surface. 

There were marigolds, chrysanthemums, lilies, daisies, a tall miniature rose bush in one corner. There was a bunch of pansies, geraniums, a big healthy poinsettia with glossy green leaves, and a dwarf lemon tree, bearing three lemons on the verge of full ripeness.

"It's beautiful," Mori gazed around in wonder, at the profusion of plant life in the room. "Amazing, they're all so healthy." He thought of his tomatoes, and the dormant anemone back at the cottage. "Iwasaki-san has a great gift with tending plants. I only wish I could come apprentice, here."

"Morinozuka-san is too generous with his praise. A man who can bring such strawberries and melons to market--oh, yes, I've heard about those melons. No need to look so modest. You know, they almost called off the festival prize last year, because yours weren't entered. It caused quite a great deal of fuss."

"Ah. I wasn't aware of that," Mori said, still vaguely out of sorts about those troublesome melons. "But Iwasaki-san reminds me, I should offer congratulations on her prize, as well."

"Oh, those silly preserves. I'm afraid they didn't do justice to the strawberries, not like I'd hoped. But, if Morinozuka-san would indulge an old lady, I will see if I can't burden him with something acceptable, for his trip back home."

Mori tried to beg off politely, to insist that no gifts were necessary, but the woman somehow bustled him away toward the pantry anyway. Arai made to follow, but she suggested he might like to say goodbye to all the plants, saying he had kept them such good company, and the boy obediently agreed.

Once they'd made it out of earshot, Mori understood that the butcher's wife had meant to speak to him alone.

"I hope Morinozuka-san will forgive me for speaking forthrightly. But at my age, one realizes that time is very short, and there are occasions when one must forgo good manners for the sake of plain speaking."

"Please, by all means," Mori offered, alert and curious.

"That child has been a joy to have in this house, but I don't mind saying that I fear for him. I don't wish to bring bad luck by believing him too good for this world. But I worry. That this world might be harsher than what he should bear."

"He's had a lot of difficulty," Mori agreed. "But I think he's strong, too."

"I know my husband's shop caused him difficulty. I know every spare moment he had, the child was in that room with the flowers. I suppose Morinozuka-sama knows he's fond of talking to flowers?"

"I was aware of that, yes," Mori smiled. "He talked to my plants, too. And I think it did them good."

They were in the kitchen by then, a room as orderly and comfortable as the rest of the house. It was a shame, Mori thought, that Arai couldn't have stayed here. Though at least he understood now, how the boy had been able to last at the butcher's shop as long as he had. 

It was too easy, to imagine Arai taking refuge in that room with wide windows, full of beautiful things growing, to help him shake off the grim sights from his work downstairs. 

Easy, and yet more hurtful than Mori would have liked to admit. Just like those evenings he'd peeked out, watching Arai faithfully scrubbing his boots on the front steps of the cottage, and being overcome with something he couldn't put a name to. 

All he knew was that his hands had felt too empty, and his heart too full. And the feeling stayed with him, for a long time.

"Morinozuka-san, may I confess something?" Iwasaki-san had turned to face him, and again Mori was struck by her resemblance to his cousin's old nurse. Arai would have done very well in either woman's care, he thought.

"Yes?"

"I wished to meet Morinozuka-san, for that boy's sake. He speaks of you as a good friend, but I wanted to be sure for myself, that you were a good person for him. I hope you don't take offense, or think I'm being impertinent. But that boy...." She gave a sigh, and shook her head sadly.

"He does not remember anyone ever caring for him. He does not remember a family, whether they loved him or not. It's as good as if no one ever has cared for him. And I feel certain, meeting Morinozuka-san, that you were brought up knowing that people did care for you, and looked after you. But I would ask that you remember, Arai-kun is different. He may look and act like a young man your age, but in a way he is still a child, who needs to know the same things you knew then. You see?"

As she spoke, Mori recalled more about that long-ago nurse, Sakura. He remembered cool hands on his fevered forehead, soft words after bad dreams. He remembered falling asleep under the New Year's fireworks, and waking up swaddled in a warm shawl, with his head in a soft lap.

Things were different after those years, but when Mori thought on his childhood, he remembered being secure, safe in the knowledge that he--as Iwasaki-san had said--was cared for.

And Arai had never known that. Seeing it in this light made Mori realize how naive he'd been, thinking the boy could simply go and make himself a place in the world, with only a promise of friendship, and some occasional encouraging words. Worse, Mori saw how woefully unprepared he was, to give Arai anything like the security and affection he would have received from this woman. He'd hared off on an impulse, telling the boy he wished to take him in again, without any real sense of the responsibility. He'd declared a project off the top of his head, literally, and had no plan at all about that, even.

And now it was too late. Arai had resigned his job, packed his belongings, and was expecting any moment, to return to Mori's home. Which meant that somehow, Mori was going to have to manage. Capable or not, prepared or not, Arai was depending on him, and letting him down at this point--especially in light of Iwasaki-san's lecture--was simply not an option.

"Ah, and I see I've worried Morinozuka-san." The woman tsked, and came to lay a hand on his sleeve, looking up at him kindly.

"No," Mori said. "Thank you for telling me. I hadn't thought of it that way, but I should have."

"It needn't be a trial, you know. That young man is very forgiving of one's errors. And I'm sure he wouldn't look up to you so much, if he didn't already know you cared. You've done better for him than you realize."

"I worried," Mori confessed. "About him being able to take care of himself. I thought it was more important that he learned how to, and didn't depend so much on me, or other people."

"It's a good thing to learn," Iwasaki-san agreed. "Self-reliance is very important. But we all need to know someone cares for us. And I expect it would be good for Morinozuka-san, to have someone care for you, too. It seems you've been self-reliant for quite a long time."

Mori allowed that this was true. "I had to be. There wasn't any choice."

The woman smiled up at him, and patted his arm. "And how lucky you are, to have a choice, now."

**

Iwasaki-san was saying her goodbyes to Arai, back in the bright room full of flowers, making him promise to look after himself, and to come and visit whenever he could. The parting wasn't easy on the boy, that was clear to Mori, but he kept his smile warm, and there was more affection in his eyes than sadness, as he let the old woman pat his cheek, and embrace him.

And then that was the moment, when one of the lemons on the potted tree dropped to the tatami, and rolled on a short wobbling path toward them.

"Oh!" Arai's brows went up, and he ducked to retrieve the lemon, holding it out for the old woman. "Isn't that funny? Iwasaki-san said they wouldn't be ready for another week."

And indeed, she looked mildly surprised. "My goodness, I certainly wasn't expecting they would be." She studied the lemon in the boy's hand, with a deep thoughtful line between her brows. "Well. Yes, I do believe Arai-kun should keep that as a gift."

"What? No, I couldn't take something Iwasaki-san grew for herself. Please, you should enjoy your lemons."

"And what's to say the tree wasn't thanking you for your kindness?" the woman smiled. "I can't imagine it would wish to share with just anyone. In a case like this, I think it would be gracious of you to accept." 

"But then that would--" Arai turned back toward the tree, with a concentrated look. "That would only leave you....two? Two lemons."

"Very good," the woman nodded. "And that's two more lemons than I expected to have in the cold of winter, anyway.

She'd been teaching Arai to count sums Mori realized with an odd pang, as he watched Arai puzzle over that last statement for a moment, before grinning.  
"Two more than zero. I get it."

"So please take that one, as a gift," Iwasaki-san answered. "And enjoy it however it pleases you."

**

"What do you think I should do with it?" Arai asked, once they were back on the village streets. He'd pulled the lemon from his pocket, and was studying it.

"I don't know," Mori answered, slightly distracted. The day had been a whirlwind so far, and it was just sinking in for him, that having hired Arai to help him build a hothouse, he was now obliged to figure out how he was going to build one. 

First off, it would take supplies he had not accounted for needing. Which meant he'd have to figure out how to juggle his winter credit among various merchants.

"I don't think they're that good to eat by themselves," Arai mused. "Too sour, for me." He brought the lemon up and sniffed it. "I like the smell of the peel though."

Mori halfway wished to ask for a bit of quiet in order to think, but he was aware that Arai might actually be trying to work through a certain ambivalence, here. On the one hand, he'd just been abruptly rescued from his breaking point, at an abhorrent job. On the other hand, he'd just had to leave the closest thing to a loving home he'd probably yet run across; making yet another departure, in a long string of them.

So, Mori felt, if Arai needed to talk about lemons, or any other inconsequential thing while he sorted his feelings out, far be it from Mori to discourage him.  
"Lemons are good in tea," he put out randomly. "Good for a sore throat."

"Oh, yeah. I remember hearing that. Back when everybody was sick."  
"They're good on fish, too. And in rice. With pepper."

Arai traced the lemon's shape with his fingertip. "Huh."

**

"So. A hothouse." The grocer looked from Mori, to Arai, with slightly confused skepticism. "Not that I would presume to question Morinozuka-san's decisions, but. Is he sure this is the right time of year for building?"

From the butcher's, Mori had taken them to the grocery, since he always dropped in on his visits, and since Arai was still--at least nominally--in Arai-san's care. He'd had the feeling, which was confirmed soon after their arrival, that the grocer had no particular objection to the boy switching jobs and households. But it certainly wouldn't do, for Mori to sweep the boy off without checking in for the man's approval, first.

Of course, this was also the point where Mori was finally obliged to make something convincing out of a barely half-baked idea.

"The New Year is coming," he said, since he was by now winging on the inspiration as it came to him. "I thought it would be auspicious. To have--ah--the framing done. For the New Year."

To his gratitude, it seemed this was all it took, to convince Arai-san. "Oh! Well that certainly makes sense. Starting a new project, get all the luck you can." He smiled over at the boy. "You haven't done building work, yet. Think you can manage, out in the cold all day?"

"I'll do whatever Morinozuka-san needs," Arai nodded firmly. "He was such a good teacher last time, I look forward to learning a lot more from him."

"And I guess you know what you're doing," the grocer turned back to Mori. "Got your supplies lined up yet?"

"Ah. Well. That's where I was hoping for Arai-san's guidance. I have the building tools, at least for the frame....." Mori had to pause here, and check the slapdash mental arithmetic he'd done on the way over.

He could afford the framing supplies--wood, nails, and an extra shovel, on his existing winter credit. Building out the walls and roof would have to wait until delivery of his summer harvest. And the glass. The glass would be costly. But he reckoned he had until next winter's first hard frost, to sort that out.

He explained to Arai-san, the supplies he would need for now, asking how the man thought he should best go about getting them.

"Well. How much are we looking at, here?" Arai-san asked, at which point Mori had to dig in his pack for a pencil, and request a scrap of paper.

When that was provided, Mori sat for a moment, picturing what he had in mind, and trying to recall what he could of the building projects he'd assisted with at the temple, and later on, during his travels. 

He began with a rough sketch of the frame, estimating proportions as he went. A rectangular shape, with four main posts, to start. Long enough to go deep in the ground, and still give enough clearance at the top. 

"Four three-meter posts..." he mumbled, listing out measurements to the side of his drawing. "Go two meters wide, three meters long.....doorway in the middle. Center crossbeam across the width; two meters plus overhang. Times three, for front and back." He had to stop and chew his pencil briefly, trying to recall the math that would give him lengths for an angled roof.

Arai-san watched over his shoulder, nodding approval. "I see what you're getting at." Then he cocked an eyebrow at the boy, who'd been staring, fascinated, at Mori working. "Make sure you learn a lot from this fella, kid. He knows what he's doing."

"You can teach me that?" Arai asked, pointing out the numbers Mori was scribbling down.  
"Of course," said Mori, frowning over the top beams. If he miscalculated, he was going to have to duck every time he went in the doorway of this place.

The grocer shook his head, smiling. "Heh, looks like I'm going to be in your debt again, Morinozuka-san. Knowledge like that is worth a lot, according to a schoolmaster."

"What?" Mori broke out of his planning for a moment. "No, there isn't any debt. Learning is a fair exchange for work."

"Learning the tasks to complete the job, perhaps. But I don't imagine most employers would trouble themselves past that. They consider room and board enough as it is."

Mori, having been raised in the belief that learning and sharing knowledge were both lifelong responsibilities, was baffled at this. "Well I don't have the expertise of a schoolmaster. But it's no extra trouble to tell him what I do know."

At which point the grocer gave him the shrewd, assessing look which Mori had come to secretly dread. It was Arai-san's 'bargaining look', and typically indicated that the man was about to send him back home with more than he really needed or had asked for.

Although maybe this once, he thought, having a little extra help might not be a bad thing. So when the man finally said, "If Morinozuka-san would permit me to make a suggestion..." Mori let him have his say.


	19. Chapter 19

They were well down the river path, when Mori became aware of two more things he'd failed to anticipate. First, that the day was passing a lot more quickly than he'd realized. In spite of his minimal objections this time, they hadn't made it out of Arai-san's shop until three hours past high noon. And now the early winter twilight was already creeping in between the hills.

Second, it was becoming increasingly obvious that Arai was not in the shape he'd been in, only two months ago. 

The boy had eagerly shouldered his small bundle of possessions, along with half the supplies Mori had picked up in town. And for the first ten minutes of the hike, he'd marched right alongside Mori, keeping up a steady stream of casual conversation. Then as the minutes went on, he was pausing more often between sentences, and then words, to catch his breath. 

A short while later, all Mori heard was breathing, and then after that, he noted the boy was putting concentrated effort into keeping up with Mori's pace. 

Considering they were going a good bit slower than Mori had, when he'd come hiking upriver earlier, and Arai wasn't carrying near the weight he had on their first meeting, Mori was slightly mystified.

Then he remembered the butcher mentioning a lunch break when they'd first shown up (forgotten in the wake of Arai's resignation), along with the man's hints about the boy not eating enough.

Mori turned a concerned eye to the shrinking gap between the sun and the tops of the western hills, knowing they really couldn't spare much time for breaks. On the other hand, it would be a decidedly longer and more difficult trip, if he ended up having to carry Arai because he'd passed out halfway to the cottage.

With that in mind, he pointed to a flat stretch of dry gravel, in the lee of a tall boulder, up the bank. "Let's turn out up there for a bit." Arai didn't comment, he just nodded, and followed Mori doggedly up to the spot.

"You mind if we have a snack? I forgot all about lunch, today." Mori unshouldered his pack and the duffel Arai-san had loaned him, while Arai staggered in place, sorting out the ties that kept the long basket strapped across his back. Mori let him work it out, and then handed him the water canteen.

"Here, have a drink. It's easy to get dehydrated in winter, with the air this dry."  
Arai nodded, and thanked him between breaths, and Mori quickly set to digging up food items.

He pulled the box of rice he'd brought from the cottage, out of his travel pack, and then rifled through the duffel and the basket for a jar of honey, some dried apricots, and a large bag of almonds he didn't recall asking for, but which Arai-san had apparently seen fit to bestow on him.

As he went through everything, he surreptitiously set aside some of the heavier items from the basket, and replaced them with lighter articles from his duffel. Swapping a bag of rice for a box of tea, jars of pickled goods for a bundle of writing paper and ink, and so on. In the midst of the exchange, he mixed the rice, honey, fruit, and nuts and evenly divided them between his lunch box, and a small bowl he'd brought along.

He handed the box over to Arai, with a set of chopsticks, saying, "It's not as attractive as a proper bento, but it's not bad for quick energy, when you're hiking."

By now, Arai had recovered his breath enough to grin and say, "This wouldn't be one of your accidents, maybe?"  
"I suppose it was," Mori smiled back. "I dropped my pack trying to hike up a hill once, and that's what happened."

Arai tried a small taste of the dish, and closed his eyes with a little sigh.

"I think I kinda missed your cooking," he mentioned, before giving all his attention to devouring his portion.

Despite being hungrier than he'd realized, Mori had to keep his eyes on his own bowl for several seconds, while Arai's comment resonated in an odd, shivery fashion within him. 

The rational part of him--a part he'd been studiously cultivating, since he'd cleaned Arai's muddy boots, a couple months ago--pointed out it was perfectly normal to feel pleased over giving Arai something he liked. A commonplace part of friendship was being happy, when one made their friend happy.

And Mori hadn't known many people whom he'd been particularly pleased to see happy. So of course the feeling would seem new, and somewhat startling.

And the reason his cheeks were so warm was just exposure. They'd been chapped by the wind, that was commonplace too.

"Oh--why'd you give me the only set of chopsticks? Here, you take them back, I should have noticed that."

Arai was holding out his chopsticks for Mori, who snapped to and shook his head hurriedly. "No, it's fine. I usually eat this with my fingers." And to prove his point, he dug into the sticky rice with two fingers, while sternly reminding himself that they were on a short timetable, and to stop dwelling on unhelpful things.

When they'd finished the food, and took up their packs again, Arai hefted the basket straps onto his shoulders with a quizzical expression. "Weird. This feels lighter."

"I-ah-repacked it, to balance the load better. I forgot to look at that, when we left town." Which was not, strictly speaking, untrue. Just to be safe, he added, "The way we're going, there are some tricky paths. So the balance is important."

"Oh," said Arai, tilting back and forth to test out his new balance. "It's a lot better now. Thanks."

**

The bottom of the sun was just a hand's-width from the top of the hills, and once again, Mori was fighting his urge to rush. He'd set an even slower pace than before, and Arai seemed to be keeping up fine. But Mori now faced the troublesome fact that they would definitely have to stop in at Onuma's barge. 

The man had some sturdy outdoor lamps, as Mori recalled, and if they could make it down to Mizuko-chan's pool before nightfall, the lamps could get them the rest of the way home. But he'd end up treading a fine line, between the speed of the sunset, and Arai's stamina. 

He didn't want to wear the boy out, before they reached the narrow path down the rock face; it was tricky enough going down in broad daylight, let alone with provisions and a lamp to balance. And once they reached it, there would scarcely be time to rest before they lost the sun altogether.

He strode along as steadily as he could, and kept an anxious eye on the sun, calculating their progress by landmarks. He was conscious of Arai glancing at him periodically, and then glancing at him with obvious doubt.

"You think we're gonna make it by dark?" he finally asked.

"It will be close," Mori admitted. "There's someone I know, who lives down-river. I'm thinking of stopping in, and borrowing some lamps from him."

"Oh, that neighbor you talked about?"

Mori had to think a moment, before remembering what he'd told Arai, when he'd first led him to the cottage, back in the fall. "Yeah. His name's Onuma. He hasn't been well lately, so I don't want to impose on him for the night. But I don't expect he'll mind loaning us some oil lamps, and then we should make the cottage all right."

"Onuma," Arai repeated. "I've heard about him. He's the river man, huh?"

"He lives on a barge, yes." And then remembering some of the colorful details Arai had mentioned hearing about Mori himself, he said, "Do they tell stories about him in the village, as well?"

"Oh, yeah. Some people say he used to be a ninja. But he retired, and went into hiding."

Mori took a second to picture Onuma--with his careless flirtation and his hat decorated with lures--as a ninja, and surprised the both of them with a short burst of laughter. "Sorry. That seems a little far-fetched. We'll visit him properly when he's feeling better, and you'll know what I mean."

Arai shrugged and grinned. "I'm just saying what I heard. I also heard he was a kenjutsu master." 

Mori didn't laugh this time, but having studied intensively with a kenjutsu master for many years, he was still deeply skeptical.   
"I'm just curious, what does Arai-san say about him?"

"He says Onuma-san pays for his goods on time. That's all he's concerned about."

"Level-headed," Mori nodded approvingly.  
This time, it was Arai's turn to laugh. "That's the same thing Arai-san says about you."

**

"Onuma-san?" Mori tapped on the door of the barge-house. "It's Morinozuka. I'm very sorry to come so late. I got delayed in town."

For a few seconds, he listened for a reply, and then tapped a little louder. "Onuma-san?"  
There came a creaking of wood, and an invitation to enter, broken by rattling coughs.

"Maybe you should stay out here," Mori told Arai. "I don't know if he has anything catching, but just in case. I'll try to hurry."  
"Yeah, that's fine," Arai replied, in a hushed tone. "You wanna leave your stuff out here?"

Mori nodded, and shifted off the duffel and the pack, then bent to remove his boots.

"Hey, everything all right?" he asked, easing his way in the door.  
"Fine, fine," Onuma replied hoarsely, lighting a lamp in the sunset gloom. "The cough always sounds worse at night, don't worry about it."

"Can I do anything for you? Make some more tea?"

Onuma coughed into his sleeve, fanning Mori off with his other hand. "Way ahead of you." He looked toward the window. "You really did get out of town late. You should have dinner, and stay over tonight."

"No, I can't bother you when you're not feeling well. I just wanted to make sure you were okay, and to ask if I might borrow one or two of your outdoor lamps, to get home with."

"One or two?" Onuma was scooping tea into his pot, frowning.

"Or just one. But I have someone with me, and he hasn't taken the path down to the pool before."

"Don't be an ass, Morinozuka." Onuma shot him a stern look, stifling another cough. "I can tell from here, you're not going to have enough daylight to get down that path. Last thing I need is your cracked skull on my conscience. Is your guest outside?"

"Yes, but--" Mori tried to protest, but was immediately interrupted.  
"Well bring him in, for heaven's sake, don't leave him out there to freeze."

Realizing that Onuma seemed impatient because he was concerned and feeling poorly, and that any argument would only make him cross, Mori returned to the door.

"Slight change of plan," he told Arai. "Onuma-san has asked that we stay here for the night."

"You sure that's okay?" Arai glanced through the open doorway. "He doesn't sound so good."

"I'm not sure he's giving us a choice," Mori said, with a slight rueful smile. "Onuma-san can be very insistent, when he's concerned for people's safety."

"I heard that, Morinozuka. Just let the poor kid in, already."

"Don't worry, he's always nice to guests," Mori told Arai, who was pulling his boots off, with a familiar apprehensive look.

And indeed, as soon as Arai came in, Onuma rose to the occasion and offered a friendly greeting. "Hey, you're Arai-kun, right? Please, take your coat off and get comfortable. Sorry we had to meet like this, but I'm Morinozuka-san's neighbor, Onuma."

"It's very nice to meet you," Arai bowed promptly. "I'm sorry to be such a bother, coming over when you don't feel well."

"Please, it's nothing. I like this much better, than the pair of you wandering around in the dark. Morinozuka-san is a very good person, but he can be stubbornly independent, sometimes." Onuma sent Mori a quick, sharp grin, and Mori sighed, raising his hands in surrender.

"I just didn't want to make a fuss here, when Onuma-san should be resting. Have you had dinner yet? At least let me take care of that."

"That, I will allow. On the condition that you agree to sleep on my futons, in here where it's warm."

The condition caused Mori a moment of awkwardness, since he would have preferred to take the next room and spare Onuma the crowding, and the possibility of being awakened by Arai's restless dreaming. 

It was another of the butcher's comments that hadn't been lost on him, that Arai was still troubled by those dreams. And now it was a potential problem. Both in terms of inconvenience to their host, and in the chance that if Onuma were awakened by it, he might want to discuss it in the morning.

But he'd learned there were times when Onuma wouldn't take no for an answer, and Mori figured he couldn't justify a refusal without an explanation he wasn't much willing to go into.

"Onuma-sama is too kind," he bowed, with a capitulating smile. "I'm indebted to his generosity."

"Eh, when I'm feeling better, I'll think of some way you can make it up to me." His grin was just mischievous enough to make Mori fear he was about to make the sort of comment that Arai probably shouldn't hear. But he seemed content with a broad hint, thankfully. "I can't really be bothered now."

At first he was too caught up in negotiations and implications, and uncomfortable nuances, to pay much attention to Arai's take on their temporary refuge. But as he began sorting through their supply cache and Onuma's pantry, for dinner ingredients, Mori became aware that Arai was making an effort--just as he had first done at the cottage--to keep himself as quiet and invisible as possible.

And since Mori had always found that performing useful tasks was the best cure for discomfort in unfamiliar situations, he gave Arai the job of collecting fresh water from outside, and then rinsing out a few helpings of rice.

"I hope it's all right if he helps me?" Mori checked with Onuma. Just because their unorthodox familiarity gave him privileges in the man's kitchen, he knew better than to assume that privilege would extend to anyone else.

"As long as no one hears about it," Onuma joked. "I can't have the two of you damaging my reputation as a host. Though if the kid wants to come drink tea and keep me company, I certainly wouldn't complain."

Arai paused with the bag of rice in hand. "Oh," he said, in a hushed tone, glancing between Mori and Onuma. "Should I do that instead?"

Onuma peered at him. "You're like a mouse, in here. How come you're whispering?"

"Because you don't feel well. Everyone's supposed to be quiet, around sick people."

For a moment, Onuma simply stared at the boy; taken aback most likely, by Arai's unabashed sincerity. It was a feeling Mori knew well.

"Ah. Well." Onuma rubbed the back of his neck, briefly at a loss. "That's very considerate. But please, it's not as if I'm on my deathbed. You can....speak in a normal tone. It's fine, really."

"Okay," Arai nodded. He brought the rice to the counter, and poured some out into the strainer Mori handed him. But before taking it off to rinse he paused, looking thoughtful, before stepping in close to Mori, who left off mincing some radish to look quizzically at him.

"Takashi--," he whispered, lifting a bit on tiptoe, to speak a question in Mori's ear.

The question wasn't altogether surprising, but Mori drew back and looked at him. "Are you sure you want to do that?" he answered just as quietly.

"Yeah. I'd like to. Do you think it's okay?"  
"I don't see why not."

"Oi, you two aren't plotting my demise over there, are you?" called Onuma, who'd been watching the conversation from his bed of cushions and quilts across the room.

"Sorry." Arai turned, heading off for the hook by the door, where his coat was hanging. "I didn't mean to be rude. I just wasn't sure if it would be okay, if I offered to share this--."

He retrieved the lemon Iwasaki-san had given him, from his coat pocket, and held it out toward Onuma. "Morinozuka-san reminded me today, that lemon in tea is good for coughs and sore throats. If Onuma-san doesn't mind, can I cut this, for your tea?"

Once again, Onuma looked briefly blindsided. "Good grief, where did you find a lemon like that at this time of year?"

"Oh, it was a gift, from someone I was working for. Do you know Iwasaki-san, the butcher's wife?"

"I can't say I've had the pleasure."

"Well she has a small lemon tree, and she gave me this one today. I know it doesn't make up for the trouble of having us, but if it's okay, I'd like Onuma-san to enjoy it."

Mori knew that, unlike himself, Onuma was conscious of market values, and even enjoyed a good haggle down in the village once in a while. So it wasn't hard to ascertain that behind his bemused look, the man was calculating what the boy's lemon might actually be worth, in terms of goods or cash. 

And he wasn't at all surprised, when Onuma turned that bemused look on him, and said, "You know, I see what you meant about this kid."  
Mori acknowledged the point with a nod and a quiet smile, while Arai blinked between them. "Eh?"

"Morinozuka-san told me you were a good sort," Onuma provided. "And he was right."

What Mori had not been expecting, was to see the boy's cheeks suddenly suffused with color, or a quick flash of that brilliant smile which Arai just as quickly ducked his head, to try and hide.

He didn't see any more than that, being forced to turn back to his work before his own expression betrayed him. He wasn't sure what he'd call his reaction exactly, but it wasn't something he especially cared to have Onuma catch and dissect, he knew that much.

"Oh, ah," Arai was stammering. "I just. Hoped it might be helpful, that's all."

"I'm not sure I'm worthy of Arai-kun's gift. It's more generous and considerate than I deserve," Onuma answered, leaving Mori further confused, by his gratitude for the man's tone. 

Onuma could have teased the boy for blushing at a compliment, he could have subjected him to any of the dozen ways he enjoyed ribbing Mori on occasion. But instead he spoke to Arai respectfully, made a point to put him at ease, and even though it wasn't something that involved Mori at all, he felt deeply, obscurely thankful.

**

With the three of them as worn out as they were, dinner was mainly a quiet affair. Though Onuma did praise his tea and the food extensively, declaring toward the end of it, that if he finally got a decent night's sleep, he had his two surprise guests to thank for it. 

Mori and Arai both took this as a hint that he was hoping to turn in soon, so they cleared the dishes quickly; Arai washing up, while Mori brought in the futons and quilts from the icy-cold room adjacent, and made their beds.

He debated for a bit, whether to give Arai the warm spot near the kotatsu, opposite Onuma, or to make their beds across the room in case Arai became restless in the night. Ultimately, he decided that warmth was more important, and that he would keep himself alert through the night, to quiet the boy if his dreams started bothering him.

Once the beds were made, Mori headed out to the sheltered deck where Arai was just finishing the dishes, to give himself a cursory washing-off before bed.

"Here," Arai gestured toward the wash tub, sitting over a low fire on the outdoor grill. "I cleaned this out and heated some more water."

Having expected to endure a rapid splashing in frigid water, Mori thanked him for the kindness, and rolled up his sleeves.

"I see why Onuma-san likes it out here," Arai mused, leaning over the deck railing, looking out at the river, twisting like a dark ribbon of silk in the spill of light from the lamp he'd brought out. "Listening to the river at night. I bet it's a nice way to fall asleep."

Mori allowed that it would be pleasant, although privately he'd thought he might not care to hear to it all the time. Something about the constantly modulating chatter of the water reminded him of ghost's voices after awhile. It made him want to pick out words where no words actually were, which was both tiresome and unsettling.

He washed his face and neck with soap, scrubbed his hands up to the elbows, and then rinsed off with the pleasantly steaming water. Arai handed him a dry kitchen towel, and then took his own turn washing.

It was just like at the cottage, Mori thought. Around that second week, when he'd looked up and discovered they'd fallen into an easy, tacit routine together. Whether they were working outside, or in the kitchen, or scrubbing laundry, they'd managed to cooperate without apparent effort; one of them always stepping in to pick up where the other left off. And at some point in the day, without his even noticing, they'd resumed that cooperation.

He had missed that. Not so consciously as he'd missed Arai's company, or his conversation. Most likely not in the same way that Arai had said he'd missed Mori's cooking....

But oh. The cooking. That reminded him of something else.

After hearing the butcher's comments, he'd gone on to notice Arai's diminished stamina, the new sharpness of his cheekbones, and when he'd taken off his coat indoors, the way his clothes seemed to hang even more loosely from his frame than Mori had remembered. 

But then Arai hadn't shown any trouble with the snack they'd had on the trail. And he'd gone on to clean his plate at dinner, just as he had at every meal they'd shared before.

So then what, he wondered, had been the trouble at Iwasaki's? It was seriously unlikely that Mori was a superior cook, compared to the butcher's wife. And he wasn't about to delude himself into believing that Arai liked his food, just because it was Mori making it. He didn't think any less of Arai for it, but the boy honestly wasn't that discriminating.

Why then, did he look like he'd gone without a decent meal, in weeks?

"Did you get enough to eat?" he asked casually, as he stacked all the clean dishes.

"Huh?" Arai swiped the water from his eyes. "Oh, yeah. I haven't been that hungry in ages. I hope I didn't take too much?"

"Not at all. I made extra, since we had that hike today." Having opened the topic, Mori wasn't sure how to proceed now. He had enough experience with Arai so far, to know that he might not like whatever answer he finally got. But the question had been needling him for hours, and it would only bother him worse, if he ignored it.

"I guess I worked up an appetite, then." He was drying off his hands now, brisk swipes of the towel, and it might have been a trick of the lamplight, but Mori thought that Arai's agreeable demeanor seemed a little forced just then.

"You say that like you haven't, in a while," he mentioned, trying to keep his tone sounding as much like idle small talk as he could. Though he quickly saw it didn't do much good.

"Yeah, well." Arai shrugged one shoulder, turning away to drape his towel over the deck railing. "It's all right now, so."

Of course that politely pointed end to the discussion only served to sharpen Mori's curiosity. But since he would rather not pry, or force Arai to actively conceal something, he decided he'd best leave the matter, for now. If it was important enough, he'd have to trust that Arai would bring it up in his own time.

"I'm glad," he said, taking up the stacked dishes to bring inside. "If it's all right, then that's good." From the corner of his vision, he registered the look of relief Arai turned on him, and chose to tell himself he'd made the right choice for now. 

**

Sometimes it was discouraging to be right, Mori reflected, in the deep darkness of the night, when the thrashing started. 

Considering the day he'd had, it would've been all too easy to sink into a dead sleep as soon as he went down. But with Arai to be concerned about, he couldn't, of course. Instead he'd lain in the darkness, listening to Onuma's slightly raspy breathing, and the muted noise of the river beyond the walls, and did his best to keep a corner of his mind busy, so he couldn't drop off. 

He silently recited the titles of the books on his bedroom shelf. Devised mathematical exercises he could teach to Arai. Plotted the layout of the shelves in his future hothouse; tomatoes, beans, maybe leeks someday. Perhaps a crop of winter melons could help pay for the glass. He staved off sleep as long as he could, and tried not to envy Arai, for being dead to the world from approximately the moment he'd pulled the quilts up over his shoulders and wished everyone a good night. 

And then finally, just when the items in Mori's mental picture of his pantry were starting to take on a vague, smeary cast, he heard a little hitch in Arai's breath, before he jolted in his bed.

Mori opened his eyes then, very much alert, and carefully rolled over. After a few seconds, Arai kicked his legs, and caught another sharp breath. Then came another quiet pause.

It was too dark to make anything out. All Mori could rely on was his ears. And he didn't want to wake Arai, if it was merely a brief disturbance. So he lay still and listened, and when the kicking happened again--scarcely audible, unless one were listening for it--he just scooted closer to the edge of his futon.

He waited, through the intermittent rustling of quilts, and gradually more labored breaths, until finally a flap and a rush of air signaled the quilts had been thrown off, and a tiny, strangled whimper broke the quiet.

Then Mori moved in, finding a warm limb in the darkness--an elbow--and grasping it, feeling his way up to Arai's shoulder.

"It's all right," he whispered, approximately where he thought Arai's ear should be. "Shh, you're okay."

He took a solid thump to the nose, hard enough to make his eyes water, when Arai suddenly rolled into him, and then there came a hand, flailing clumsily at him.

"Hey, I'm here, it's okay," he repeated, catching Arai's hand, which immediately clenched down on his fingers. The boy's palm was clammy and feverishly hot, and Mori felt a stab of fear, thinking of Onuma's illness, and Arai hunkered in the snow on the bridge earlier.

He leaned up and felt for Arai's forehead, patting at his hair, then his cheek, whispering another reassurance, when Arai gasped some thin fragment of a word at him. 

Arai's forehead did feel unusually warm, but Mori wasn't sure he'd call it fever. He remembered that one nightmare, when Arai's hair was damp with sweat, clinging to his temples, so maybe this was normal for him.

Normal, but so incredibly unjust, he thought. 

He was aware some might say--looking at him in this moment--that he was taking advantage of Arai's vulnerability to justify a selfish personal attachment. Because he was hopelessly attached. He'd known it the moment he'd pulled Arai close to him on that bridge, heedless of anyone who might have come by and seen, or any other consequences. 

None of the reasonable consideration he'd prided himself on, had even come into it. All he'd known was that he couldn't bear to see Arai's heart break, because his own would've broken in sympathy. For one thoughtless moment, he would have sacrificed anything to prevent that.

And now, in the middle of the night, with Arai settling quietly next to him, clutching his hand in a fierce grip, Mori had no choice but to be honest with himself. His motives were neither selfless, nor entirely pure, and more than a month's separation had done nothing to help his resolve.

Here, where no one else could see, Mori could admit that all he wanted was to tuck in closer to the purest, most selfless person he'd ever met. To curl around him and breathe him in, and sleep soundly knowing Arai would stay safe and untroubled.

But of course, one night wouldn't be enough. Already, Mori had lost the knack for solitude. And already, his attachment was leading him to make impulsive, questionable choices. Today had been full of them.

This young man wasn't like a blanket he could purchase from the village, and take home with him to keep. Arai had his own fate, his own future to discover. 

But the greater problem, Mori realized, was that if Arai ever caught so much as a hint that Mori wanted anything from him, he would drop everything and do his best to give it, without any more hesitation than when he'd given up his lemon to Onuma. No doubt begging Mori's pardon humbly, all the while.

That was an unhappy, but sobering prospect. Enough to get Mori fishing about with his free hand, to flip the covers back over Arai as best he could, before sliding as far back onto his own futon as their clasped hands would let him. 

It was one thing to wish for things he couldn't afford. But making Arai--who had so little as it was--feel obliged to pay for Mori's wishes, was unthinkable.

Mori had been raised to endure, and to serve. That was his place in the scheme of things, that was his fate, and the small handful of people in the world who cared for Arai, had entrusted him to Mori. It was a sacred trust, in its way, and the moment Mori forgot that, was the moment he brought dishonor on all of them.

_Just let me be here for you,_ he thought, feeling that strong grip on his hand, that had somehow squeezed in around his heart as well. _I'll endure anything for your sake, and be content._


	20. Chapter 20

He was back in the butcher's shop, and outside a storm was brewing.

The place was empty, and dark as the clouds gathering outside. Mori thought he should call out, to see if anyone was around. But something in the echoing stillness of the room made him keep quiet instead.

He was walking, from the storefront, around the counter, to the back room. He didn't particularly want to go to that room, knowing what he would see there. The bones, and the blood, and so much thoughtless cruelty. (Yes, he ate fish and meat on occasion, and yes, it was hypocritical to shun the provision of it. But there were some things he was simply unable to bear, no matter how much he might rationalize it.)

He didn't want to see the room, but that was where he was going. With an uneasy prickling under his skin, and the feeling that those heavy restless storm clouds were drawing in too close behind him. It felt like a clock was ticking, like time was running short, and there was somewhere he needed to be.

The room was longer than it should have been. And full of animal corpses hanging on hooks, from the ceiling. It wasn't that shocking, actually. This was just how he'd pictured it, after all. 

He knew, that this wasn't really Iwasaki's back room. It was just what he'd been imagining, when he'd passed that room. Because the butcher's shop he'd walked out of years ago, exhausted and shaken and desperate (but not that desperate), had been just like this. Stripped muscle and white bone, and patches of hair where the skinning blade had missed. They all hung on steel hooks. Things that used to be cows, and things that used to be pigs and God, horses even. And now they were just.....

How could Arai possibly have found an appetite, after being faced with this all day? And how could Mori have failed to make the connection? He'd feared illness, or sadness, and maybe those things played a part, but the answer had been right in this room.

"You ain't got time for this, kid. Hell of a storm comin' in. Best get a move on."

It wasn't Iwasaki's words that got him, so much as seeing them delivered by a decapitated hog's head, staring at him from where it sat lopsided, atop a barrel. Which was not something he wished to ever think of again. 

So he looked straight down at the cobblestone floor between his (bare) feet, and asked, "Get a move on where?"

Iwasaki (not the hog's head, no, most certainly not) chuckled. "You got eyes, don't you? So use 'em."

Mori looked up, but all he saw was flayed carcasses, hanging in rows, stretching far, far back, until the rows disappeared into shadow, like a dense forest of the slaughtered.

(and then....)

A flash of color. It wasn't bone and it wasn't meat, it was....

(streak of orange-white)

And before Mori could think, he was going forward. Ducking and dodging the bodies, apologizing under his breath, like he was elbowing his way down a crowded street.

 

He tripped and fell, because he'd been rushing. Going too fast, looking only for the flick of a brushy tail; pointed nose and sharp ears. Just when he would start to think it was a trick, or another mistake, he'd catch a little glimpse and surge forward again.

And now he was pushing himself up, from the dirt and pine needles. Brushing his hands off on his knees. The storm still hadn't broken; it loomed over the forest, turning day into something not quite night, holding the air too still for comfort. Mori felt it bearing down on his shoulders, creeping up in his footsteps, and he knew when it came it would be swift and violent.

He stood and looked around. Spotted a bare, skeletal aspen, quivering all over with white rags instead of leaves. Rags with writing on them. Hung like temple petitions; hundreds of fluttering prayers.

Stepping toward the tree, he saw something else, lying on the ground. A wire frame, rusted and twisted up, attached to a long wooden rod. Some scraps of white rag clung to the wire, in shreds and snags of thread.

It was a parasol. Weathered and ruined almost beyond recognition.

Again he stepped forward, thinking to pick up the remains of the parasol, and inspect the tree, but then a shadow darted across the path, far ahead, and Mori caught only a blink of orange fur before it disappeared, and then he took off running.

There were times he recognized which trail he was on. By certain rocks, certain stream intersections, or fallen trees. But the landmarks came at random, and in contexts he didn't recognize. The shady copse where he'd picked his morels was now full of old stone lanterns of all sizes, all glowing with a steady light. The stretch of gravel where he and Arai had sat to eat that very afternoon was thick with purple heather, and the boulder was blanketed in white butterflies, every one of them so still they could have been carved from flawless white jade.

Then he was on the north side of the river, the village somewhere behind him, and though the trees had thinned out, and the path was lost to wide swaths of clear ground, the darkness was thick. He passed a field of tree stumps, dozens of them, with black flickering shadows buzzing in between like flies after blood, and it set an alarm bell wailing in his skull. He veered off sharply and picked up his pace, crossing the rocky bed of a dry stream.

He heard the river, before he saw it. The ghostly chattering, hundreds of whispering voices, each one desperate for his notice _(the shelf tell her I left it on the shelf she's been looking / he lied he was with her I know what I saw they think I'm a fool / lost my favorite comb it was a gift it's in the water now / mama it's dark why is it so dark I can't see you mama )_. He had to cover his ears, coming down the slope, through the wide break in the tree line. And then he had to stop, hard, before he walked over the edge of the bluff.

The river was farther down than he expected, and unaccountably calm. From the noise, he thought he'd see rushing rapids, white foam over rocks. But it wound slow as a fat snake, thick and viscous-looking, and hard as he looked, Mori couldn't make out the bottom.

"It's not time for you to cross yet." He would know the blunt intonation of a water spirit anywhere, he thought, but when he spotted it, he realized he didn't know this one at all.

Like Mizuko-chan, this entity peering up at him was sinuous and reed-limbed, and its round lidless eyes had the same glassy cast. But where Mizuko-chan was bright and silvery, this one wore deeper tones. Like moss in the crevices of a hidden waterfall, or stones in a shaded grotto, or the flesh of a dark-dappled salmon. And instead of silver, its eyes were a luminous sunset gold.

The cacophony of river voices had hushed, at some point, and Mori lowered his hands from his ears.

"I don't think I can cross anyway," he said. "There's no..." But then he looked over, and saw that there was indeed, a bridge. A rickety, rotted, treacherous construction, if he'd ever seen one. Fraying rope and slapdash planks, swooping down toward the water, before struggling its way back up the other side.

And on the other side, was a shrine gate. Two tall posts of thick cypress, rising straight and true, topped with a gracefully curving beam. Through the gate was a clear dirt path, leading back into the densest evergreen forest he'd yet seen.

"When the time comes to cross, remember how you got here," the spirit told him.

Mori figured it wasn't worth mentioning, that he had no idea how he'd gotten here. Chasing after glimpses of the fox, he'd crisscrossed nearly every part of the woods he knew, and many he didn't, and none of it in any particular order. And furthermore, he didn't trust that bridge one bit, whether it was time to cross it or not.

There was never any point debating details with water spirits. "Okay," he told it. Adding, "Thanks for the advice," though he had no idea why.

"Don't forget your stone. That person paid a heavy price for it."

"Which stone?" Mori asked, just as it slipped out of his palm, and thumped to the ground.

He bent over to pick it up, and then halted, stricken by a jarring dread.

It was one of his stones. One of those flat gray stones he'd left for the fox, with a message chiseled on.

In actual point of fact, it was the exact one which had gone missing, months back, in that other dream.

He was kneeling, reaching out with a shaky hand. Turning the stone over, to see....  
 _(....I pray you come home safely)_

The message was still there, but barely. It had been worn almost entirely away, as if by sand, or decades of rushing water. And someone had written over it. In black ink, still wet, now smudged across his palm.

It was both a name, and a place. He knew, because the brush strokes were his own. He knew because he had written these same characters before, someplace very different.

_What person paid? For what?_ Mori wanted to ask the spirit. Suddenly it was so very important, the most important thing he could imagine.

But the spirit was gone, the bridge and forest and gate were gone, and Mori opened his eyes....

To the bright front room of Onuma's barge.

**

Initially, he thought it must be another dream. Arai and Onuma were both up, conversing quietly in Onuma's brightly sunlit kitchen area. They were in the middle of breakfast preparations, both of them already cleaned up and dressed for the day. Arai was studiously absorbing some explanation Onuma was giving; Mori didn't notice what was being said, what he noticed was Onuma himself.

The man was entirely different from yesterday. He looked rested, lively; the paleness and dark shadows under his eyes having altogether vanished. And his gestures came easily, with none of the invalid's care for aching joints and muscles.

Mori pushed himself up, knuckling the sleep from his exhausted eyes, still half-caught in the lingering shreds of images from his dream. He felt nowhere near as robust as Onuma looked; rather, going by the reports from his body, he may as well have actually spent the night traversing the whole countryside.

A curious compulsion made him check his hands, to see if he bore any scrapes from falling down in that dream. But they looked the same as always; clean nails, and calloused palms. The same went for his bare feet, when he pulled the quilts aside; nothing at all out of the ordinary. Nothing to account for why he felt so utterly worn out, after having slept well past sunrise.

"Well hello, my good man," called Onuma, with the bright morning sun winking off his glasses "Glad to see you could join us virtuous early risers."

"Morning," Mori nodded, pushing up carefully. "Looks like you're feeling better."

"I feel fantastic," he answered, in a clear, healthy voice. "I don't know what you two did, but it cured me."

"I already told Onuma-san we didn't do anything special," Arai said to Mori, looking like he'd deflected his share of praise already this morning. "He just needed a good meal and some rest."

"Sure, that's fine, kid," Onuma winked. "You keep your magic secret." Glancing over at Mori, he added, "Go ahead and use the washroom. I was just putting some breakfast together. Rolled egg and potato pancakes sound good?"

Still not fully awake, Mori waved him on. "That's fine, but you don't have to go to any trouble."

"Forget it, it's the least I can do," said Onuma. "Anyway, I haven't felt like cooking in days. Decided I wanted to show Arai-kun my favorite egg recipe."

"Ah," Mori said. "That's a good recipe." And then he trundled off to Onuma's bath, to dunk his head in cold water and hopefully wake his brain up.

**

"So, Arai-kun tells me you decided to build a hothouse," said Onuma, passing a dish to Mori. "It's about time you settled in, and made some improvements over there."

"It'll be a long project," Mori said. "I just wanted the frame up in time for New Year's."

"Nothing wrong with that," Onuma said. "You plan on dragging up a priest from the village, for a ceremony?"

Mori hadn't considered this at all, actually. "I'll hang lanterns, and some banners. I guess I can bless a hothouse. No reason to bother a priest." 

Tired as he was, it took several seconds, before he realized Onuma and Arai had both stopped eating, and were staring at him; Arai with undisguised curiosity, and Onuma with the expression of a man quickly solving some tricky equation. At which point Mori realized he'd let something major slip.

"You know, I've teased you for a few years, about being a monk up in that little sanctuary of yours," Onuma said slowly. "I always wondered if it was true, though."

Knowing that at this point, only a man with something to hide would start denying things, Mori could only shrug. "I grew up in a temple. They took me in when I was very young. I'm not a monk, though I learned from them."

Arai opened his mouth to voice a question, but then darted a glance at Onuma, and seemed to think better of it.

"Hm. I guess that explains your calligraphy, then," said Onuma. "It's a better hand than what you usually see, around these parts." Then he grinned. "Explains that sober frugality of yours, too. Your land could make you a damned wealthy man, if you were the least bit interested."

"I don't want the complication," Mori answered simply. "A peaceful life is more important." He gave Onuma a steady look, adding, "Don't you agree?"

In all the time they'd know each other, neither he or Onuma had pried for details into the others' past, by mutual, unspoken agreement. Mori never learned what had led his neighbor--a clever and obviously well-educated man-- to take up life on a river barge, and Onuma had never learned what led Mori to arrive in these remote woods, and choose to settle. One thing he'd been sure of, was that they both had their private reasons to keep the balance of knowledge as it was.

And Onuma, being both perceptive, and sensitive to the boundaries of that knowledge, thankfully caught Mori's hint.

"I do agree," he smiled. "And I think Morinozuka-san has made a wise choice." Then he passed around a plate of dumplings, and the topic of Mori's upbringing was closed.

Although he did provide some interesting advice about the hothouse, when Mori and Arai were ready to depart.

"I doubt I have anything like Morinozuka-san's expertise. But if you were interested in some water for a New Year's blessing, I'd suggest you check with Mizuko-chan."

"That's a good idea," Mori nodded, at the same time recalling Mizuko-chan's injunction regarding the pool above the orchard. "If I see her, I'll be sure and ask." And then, because it only seemed polite, he invited Onuma to come over for the New Year.

"I'll bring food," Onuma promised, "and some drink to celebrate."

"Then I'll give you my futon, when you drink too much," Mori said. "That sounds fair, to me."

Onuma looked as if he were tempted to make a suggestive reply then, but glanced between Mori and Arai, and simply grinned instead. It was probably a suggestive grin, but Mori chose not to notice. 

"You two be careful," he said, instead. "Get home safe, and don't overwork yourselves."

**

Mori had to admit his observational skills were seriously falling down on the job. All morning, and through most of their hike back to the cottage, he had failed to notice Arai's unusual reticence. 

Granted he was tired, and even despite a good breakfast and a brisk walk, he found it impossible to summon any energy. And he had that strange dream on his mind, though he could only remember bits and shreds of it now. Chasing after glimpses of the fox, that spirit with the staring gold eyes, and something about a rickety bridge.

There was also the coming project to consider. It was ten days until New Year's, and providing the weather held, Fukuo-san would show up tomorrow with the building supplies, as arranged by Arai-san. Mori had wanted to have the snow shoveled away and a plot staked out and ready by then, allowing plenty of time to explain the process to Arai.

What all this resulted in, was a long hike in silence, with Mori preoccupied by his dream, Onuma's inexplicable return to good health, the vague dread of shoveling snow all day, and his insistent desire for a hot bath and a long nap. Once in awhile, he'd remember Arai was there, and attempt some companionable small talk at him, and the answers he got ("Yeah, breakfast was very good." "I'm glad Onuma-san feels better, he's a nice guy." "No, I'm fine, we don't have to stop.") were all agreeable, brief, and led the conversation no further at all. Which he entirely failed to notice.

It wasn't until they'd safely navigated the path down the rock face, to Mizuko-chan's pool (which in retrospect, Mori was enormously glad they hadn't tried at nightfall), that he actually realized Arai didn't seem to be himself at all. And then it was only because Arai brought up what was bothering him, first.

They had paused to look at the pool, deep and still, and clear all the way to the bottom. Mori had just explained that this was somewhere Mizuko-chan stayed, and that the pool fed the stream, which in turn watered the orchard.

And Arai nodded, and looked into the water, and then said, "I'm sorry I kept you up last night. I know you're really tired, and I'm sorry. Please let me do all the work when we get back, so you can rest."

Unfortunately, it was the bald truth, and Mori was too tired to think his way around a benign counterargument. Eventually he had to settle for, "You can't help it if you have bad dreams. I don't mind if it keeps me awake. But I mind that they bother you."

Arai's troubled frown stayed firmly in place. "I don't remember dreaming anything. I just woke up, and I was holding on to your hand. And my hand felt sore. I was holding on too hard, right?"

Mori attempted a smile. "You do have a strong grip. But really, it's okay. You shouldn't feel bad about it."

"Iwasaki-san told me I should think about happy things, before I go to sleep. So I try to do that. But I guess it doesn't work." He turned a serious, penetrating look on Mori, then. "Did my bad dreams wake you up before?"

"A few times," Mori confessed, wishing he could think of any graceful way out of this conversation. "But please don't--"

"Takashi. Why didn't you say something?" Arai looked stricken now, and to Mori's alarm, faintly betrayed.

"Because," Mori sighed heavily. "I thought you had enough to worry about. And I didn't want you to feel bad, over something you couldn't change. I thought it would only make the problem worse. And," he pointed out, "it got better, that second week. I don't remember you having any bad dreams, then."

"Really?" Arai blinked.  
"Really. You didn't wake me up at all. I'm sorry I didn't tell you. I just..." he trailed off and shrugged helplessly. "I didn't want you to be upset. Maybe that was unfair, though. I apologize."

Arai studied him for a long moment, then he turned his gaze back to the depths of the pool. "I'm not sure I get it. You didn't say anything, because you wanted to help me?"

"Something like that, yes."

"Is that one of those things, that friends do?"  
"Sometimes, I think. There are things we don't say, to spare a friend's feelings. And we forgive things, from friends, that other people might not."

"So. You forgive me, for keeping you awake?"

"You never wronged me," Mori clarified. "There's nothing to forgive."

Once again, Arai looked back to him, serious and searching, and Mori had to admire his persistence in seeking an honest answer. It was a mark of trust, he saw, that Arai wasn't surrendering the issue so easily. When they'd first become acquainted, he wouldn't have dared to press it at all.

"Would you tell me, if I did wrong you? I mean, if I did something, but didn't know it?"

For a moment, Mori was stuck. Remembering the night before, on Onuma's deck. His certainty that Arai would have evaded the question, if asked directly, why he'd lost his appetite.

Of course Mori had figured out the reason on his own. And he knew why Arai didn't want to discuss it, why he would just as soon put it behind him. Having been trapped essentially, working in a place where he could barely stand to look around him. It must've been like living a nightmare he couldn't shake. Who in their right mind would want to rehash the details, so soon after they'd escaped such a thing?

And yet. He'd closed Mori out. Politely, gently. But nonetheless deliberately. And Mori could probably mention the disparity here; Arai taking exception to things Mori hadn't mentioned, when he himself was unwilling to share.

But they weren't the same thing. It wasn't comparable, and it would be unfair of Mori to press him for that, like it was some kind of exchange.

"If you did, and didn't realize it," he finally said. "We could talk about it." Then, out of curiosity, he added, "Would you do the same? Tell me if I do something that bothers you?"

"That would be fair," Arai allowed, though it appeared he had difficulty, imagining Mori committing any major offense. 

"Is it okay, if I ask something else?"  
"It's always okay to ask," Mori replied.

"Would you--please-- agree to rest when we get back? It would be bad, if you got sick, like Onuma-san. And I'm sorry, but I'm worried."

Mori hung his head slightly. "There's a lot of work to do. But we can make a compromise. I have to heat the bath, when we get back. We'll work until the water's hot, and then I'll rest. Is that all right?"

"Yes," Arai agreed, looking relieved. "Thank you."

It was true Mori reflected later, what Iwasaki-san had told him. Arai was indeed very forgiving of his errors. And she must have been right, about the boy's deep need for reassurance, too. For someone who'd never known the care of a loved one, the idea of unconditional acceptance must be difficult to grasp, let alone trust in. Especially in light of all Arai's experience to the contrary.

But he was learning, Mori thought. Little by little, Arai was growing to understand friendship. And hopefully, with time and patient affirmation, he would come to trust his own place in it.


	21. Chapter 21

Staking out a plot to build on level ground was quite simple, in theory. It should even have been reasonably simple, in practice.

Unless one were building on level ground with a mind of its own, apparently.

When Arai came in, the morning after they had strung out the stakes for the hothouse, and informed Mori that their work had been blown across the clearing--heavy twine, stakes, and all--Mori assumed he'd done a shoddy job setting the stakes. It was logical to assume that. He had been tired, and not all that focused, after all.

So after breakfast, they went out and untangled the stakes and twine from the underbrush and snow drifts, and Mori went and fetched the mallet again, and they set about repeating the previous day's work.

It shouldn't have taken long; all the measuring was done, and all they had to do was put the stakes in the same place in the ground where they'd been, and then run the twine around the perimeter again, to mark out the plot.

But then Mori ran into trouble, finding some of the holes where the stakes were first set. Actually, he couldn't find any of them. He concluded the soggy ground under the snow must be the culprit, and made a point, after eyeballing the proportions of the plot, to pound the stakes deep into the soil this time.

With that done, they ran the twine again, and then Mori went to fetch a shovel and the heavy spade, to start digging the posts, while Arai went to the well to draw up a pitcher of water, to drink while they worked.

They both came around from opposite corners of the cottage at roughly the same moment, and both stopped dead at their respective sides of the plot.

"You didn't--just now--." Mori broke off and stared at the ground.

"Uh. No. I was just--." Arai, laden down with the water jug, jerked a shoulder back in the direction of the well. "Over there. Um." He cocked his head at the scattered twine and stakes, as baffled as Mori.

"You saw me with the mallet, right?" Mori asked.  
"Yep. Sure did."

"The stakes were in the ground."  
"Far as I could see. Yeah, you put 'em in there."

"Huh." Mori would've scratched his head, but his hands were full of tools.

"Guess we try again?" Arai asked.

**

They tried again, three more times. Each time, the stakes stayed put, until both young men were looking elsewhere, and then, mysteriously, the ground ejected them. First, was when Mori turned away for a drink of water, and Arai bent over to re-tie his bootlace. The second time, they were distracted by a vigorous disagreement amongst a flock of sparrows, in a nearby tree.

The third time--well, the fifth altogether for this seemingly simple exercise--Mori planted his feet and said, "All right. I'm going to stay here, until I see what's going on."  
"Yeah," nodded Arai. "Good idea."

And they waited. For close on half an hour. Staring determinedly at the staked-out plot. 

Finally Arai said, eyes fixed on the stake nearest his boot, "Y'know. It's kinda chilly out here. You want to watch, while I make some tea?"

Without so much as blinking at the ground, Mori said, "Sure. Thanks."

Ten minutes later, Arai returned with a tea-tray, to find Mori on his knees in the snow, surrounded by scattered stakes and twine, with one hand over his eye, and a morose expression.

"Something flew into my eye."

Arai set the tray on the ground with a clatter and hurried to his side. "You okay? Did it hurt you?"  
Mori moved his hand at Arai's urging, and let him look. "It's okay, I think it washed out. I think I need a different plan."

**

They walked a circuit around the cottage, while Mori explained that what he'd wanted, was to build near the back corner where the bath was. That way, he could tap off of the bath drain, and run a short pipe to the hothouse, for irrigation.

"Okay. Well, how about building by the kitchen?" Arai asked.  
Mori pointed out how the structure for the root cellar essentially ran the half the length of the east side of the cottage. "I'm afraid if I build near it, there could be problems with the cellar roof."

"Oh. Good point. Could you build out here?" They were in front of the cottage now, facing the clearing.

"It's not level enough. It's hard to see, but....come sit here." He led Arai to sit on the porch next to him, and showed him where the ground sloped gently down to the tree line. "You see that angle? That's why it doesn't flood here. It's easier to tell in a hard rain."

"No, I can see it." Arai focused on the clearing, his eyes tracking from the tree line, up to the base of the porch steps. "Is it like that in the back, too? I didn't notice."  
"It slopes down past the laundry line, in back."

"The laundry line." Arai looked pensive. "How come those posts don't fall out, like the stakes?"  
"I didn't put them in," Mori shrugged. "No idea."

"You put up the posts by your vegetable plot?" Referring to the two posts Mori had sunk at the north side of the plot, thinking he'd make it the gate for a fence. He'd abandoned the idea of the fence a few years ago, but found that the gate posts were handy for hanging things from, so he'd left them.

"Yeah," Mori frowned. "Those never fell out."

It didn't take long to reach a consensus that they essentially had two choices. For whatever reason, it appeared that building on the southeast corner of the cottage was not permissible. So they could either continue pounding stakes into the ground, until they located an area where the stakes wouldn't come out, or else figure out why the stakes wouldn't stay in the first place.

Arai raised the question of whether Mizuko-chan might know why they couldn't stake the plot where Mori had wanted. Mori felt it was doubtful, since the water spirit had never seemed interested in anything beyond her domain. But in the absence of any better options, it was worth the attempt, at least.

However with Fukuo-san scheduled to arrive with the supplies from town, they had to put off the trip to the back of the orchard for later. In the meantime, Mori drilled Arai on reading and writing numbers, which was a concept the boy had gleaned in bits and pieces from his various jobs, but had never tried on his own.

They sat at the table in the front room, and Mori made use of the bag of almonds Arai-san had provided. First, he laid out a small handful of almonds on the table. Then, he took a piece of paper, and wrote the numbers one through ten in sequence, and gave it to Arai.

"Which number goes with this group?" he asked, pointing to the pile of almonds.

Arai pored over the list, and pointed to a symbol. "This one?"  
"Close," said Mori. "How many almonds is this?"

Leaning over, Arai counted each almond with his fingertip. "One, two, three, four....five. That's five. Right?"

"Good," Mori nodded. "So count the symbols down that list, until you reach five."  
"Ah--." Arai put his finger to the page, and counted to himself. "This one, this is five."

"That's correct. Now--." Mori pushed a small square of paper over to him, and the pencil. "You remember, how I showed you to draw the number five?"

"Yeah--I think. Yeah." With painstaking care, Arai bent toward the paper, and scratched out the strokes. Then he leaned back and eyed his work critically. "It's kinda messy."

"That's fine, I can read it. So now, how many almonds are here?"  
"Five."  
"And what's the number you drew?"  
"Five."  
"And where is that on the list?"

Arai pointed to Mori's paper. "Right here. Oh, no wait. It's this one."

"Perfect," Mori nodded, and gave him an almond. Arai beamed.

"Now how many are there?" Mori asked, grinning, and they went through the whole exercise several more times, with Mori adding and subtracting almonds, until a distant jangling of harness bells announced Fukuo-san's arrival on the property. 

**

As Mori had more or less expected, Arai-san had managed to pack in more supplies than strictly necessary. In addition to the wood, framing nails, and extra shovel, they discovered a heavy bag of rice, a measure of black beans, a bag of chestnuts, burdock root, mushrooms, dried sardines, and sundry other familiar ingredients.

"Osechi," Fukuo explained, succinctly, and Mori stifled a sigh. It hadn't even occurred to him, to plan for a New Year's banquet. He hadn't partaken of the tradition in years, after all.

"Arai-san has given us too much," he smiled, a little ruefully. "He puts me to shame, for having no New Year's gifts to offer, in return."

"This is what you give at New Year's? " Arai asked.

"These are things you eat, when you wish for good fortune, in the coming year," Mori explained. "I'll have to see if I can remember how to prepare all this."

"Arai-san said not to worry. Morinozuka-san has already done him a favor, with the kid, here. And he wishes Morinozuka-san's hothouse will prosper." Fukuo stared toward the cottage, from under his wild black eyebrows, while Mori continued handing off items for Arai to carry to the porch.

"Kid looks happier," he eventually remarked. "Saw him down at Iwasaki's awhile back."  
Mori handed off the last box of nails to Arai, who carried them away, and then he hopped off the back of the cart, brushing his hands on his knees.

"He didn't look too good, then," Fukuo mused.

Indeed, Mori himself could hardly believe that only two days ago, Arai had been hunched in the snow at the bridge railing, looking at him with miserable haunted eyes, and perilously close to breaking. He thought they had both given a hidden sigh of relief, the moment they'd walked back into the cottage together, and since that point, Arai's good humor seemed boundless.

"They're good people," Mori mentioned, since it was only fair. "The Iwasaki family. The wife was very fond of him."

"Hm," Fukuo nodded in the gruff, impartial-looking manner which passed for agreement with him. Then he looked off toward the cottage porch, where Arai was industriously sorting through the goods, and taking them indoors. 

"Be good to see him settle in somewhere, and stay awhile."

Mori had no idea what to say to that. Too aware that he was invested in the subject in a way that Fukuo wasn't. That no one else was, really. And maybe that investment wasn't wise, maybe it would only lead him to hurt. But at least it couldn't trouble anyone else, so long as he kept it to himself.

**

With all the village busy in preparation for the New Year, Fukuo had to decline Mori's usual offer of rest and refreshments indoors. But since Mori had prepared some things, with Arai's help, it was only a matter of moments to pack a box of food, and pour some tea in a corked bottle to send with him.

After seeing Fukuo off and down the wooded path together, they turned back for the cottage, Mori wondering where he would store all the extra rice, and if he'd be ready to bear it next time, when it was just him, alone in this clearing again.

And then next to him, Arai let out a little gasp, and Mori shook himself alert.

"Takashi--I think..." He was focused toward the cottage, wide-eyed, and Mori glanced sharply across the clearing as well. But as far as he could see, there was nothing at all amiss.

"What is it?" 

"I think I see the problem. With the hothouse plot." Arai looked at him, and reached out for his arm. "Come over here, where I'm standing." He steered Mori over, slightly in front of him, and then brought an arm around to point over Mori's left shoulder.

"Okay, you see how your front door is facing us?"  
"Yeah."

"And you see the well, where the--what's it called--the windlass is, how that's facing the same way? Kinda like a door."  
Mori cocked his head, and squinted. "Okay, sure."

"Now look at the posts over there." Arai swung his arm across, pointing to the vegetable plot. Mori looked, and saw how those posts lined up, just like the windlass structure, giving the appearance of an open frame.

"Okay," Mori frowned. "But what's--"  
"Look, over there, at the root cellar," Arai urged. "Do you see it? All the doors are facing us."

Mori blinked and leaned back slightly, taking in the root cellar doors, the front door of the cottage, the well windlass, and the unfinished gate of the vegetable plot. It was hard to be sure from this distance, but it appeared as if every 'door' (if one counted the windlass frame), faced exactly square to this side of the clearing. Which was to say....

He glanced up at the sun, and then down at the afternoon shadows cast by the trees, running across the clearing from west to east. "They all face north."

"And out back, the laundry line does the same thing. I noticed it before, how the posts line up straight with the front door," Arai put in. "But when we were doing the stakes for the hothouse, you were gonna make the door face that way, right?" he said, pointing east, toward the orchard.

"Yeah. I wanted the water pipe in the back, so I planned the door on the opposite side." Mori stared across the clearing, wondering how he'd missed this before.

"There's something else, too," said Arai. "Look at the shadow from your house."

"We can't see it," Mori pointed out. "It's behind...." He stopped, turned and stared at Arai, meeting his excited grin with a feeling of baffled amazement. "It falls behind the house in winter. I didn't even think of that."

"So that spot, where we were putting the stakes, would only get sun for half the day," Arai nodded eagerly. "But if you turn the whole plot, so the door faces this way--," waving a hand in the area where they stood, "--then it won't be in the shadow."

"Turn it?" Mori tried to picture what he meant. He angled his arm out, "What, you mean like this?"

"Look--." Arai strode over to the tree line, and grabbed a fallen branch off the ground, then waved Mori over to a patch of untouched snow. "So here's your house," drawing a square with the point of the branch. "And here's the vegetable plot on this side, right?" He drew a long rectangle on the right of the square, and then drew a smaller rectangle, with the length running top to bottom, near the top left corner of the square representing the cottage. "See? You just turn it like that, so it's long, like the root cellar. Then it's not in the shadow."

Looking at the drawing, Mori saw Arai's solution was so simple, it was actually brilliant, for someone who'd never studied geometry or construction before. "How did you know to do that?"

"How?" Arai glanced up from his snow-drawing, to Mori. "I dunno, I just--." He waved his branch toward the cottage. "I was just looking at the shapes. They all....fit, y'know? And if the hothouse went sideways, with the door facing the other way, it wouldn't fit."

"Wouldn't fit?"

"Yeah, it's not...." Arai sketched a shape in the air with his hand, frowning a little. "I'm not sure what you call it. It's like, when Iwasaki-san arranged flowers for the tokonoma. She said you have to make the shape a certain way. You can't do everything on one side, or all in the middle."

"Balance?" Mori guessed, with a vague understanding dawning on him. He straightened up, stuck his hands in his pockets, and studied the cottage again; the well, the vegetable plot, the rise of the root cellar, and even the surrounding trees, and tried to see it all as a series of inter-related shapes, like a painting, or an ikebana composition.

There actually was, he thought, a certain balance to the whole. It was elusive, and his eye was far from expert. But for just a moment, he thought he could grasp it in the way that Arai was trying to explain. 

What he couldn't quite grasp--not without actually seeing it in front of him--was how the hothouse would unbalance that composition, if he'd built it so the length ran east to west, as opposed to north to south. How Arai could picture that was quite honestly beyond him.

"I dunno," Arai sighed, apparently taking Mori's silence for a negative judgment. "Maybe that's not it. I'm probably just imagining it."

Mori turned and raised an eyebrow at him. "We won't know, unless we try it."  
"You want to try it?"

"It's a good idea," Mori said. "The best we've had so far, anyway."

"But we didn't--." Arai stopped and chuckled. "Right. We didn't have any ideas."

Mori tilted in and bumped their shoulders together. "C'mon, show me how you want to stake it out, and we'll try again."

Arai flashed the broad, bright smile that Mori was sure he was developing a weakness for. "Alright. Okay, sure."

**

The sun was setting, and they were at the table in the front room, just finishing dinner. Arai set down his bowl and looked off toward the windows, half-hidden by his bed screen, bearing the same uncertain anticipation in his expression, that Mori was feeling.

"Should we go look?" 

They had agreed, after staking out the plot the last time, that they should leave it awhile, and see what happened. And now with the sun going down, this would be their last chance to check whether the stakes had stayed put.

If they were still in place, and stayed there overnight, then Mori had figured it would be okay to start work on digging and setting the frame posts. From there, they would have six days to work, until New Year's. Still allowing them the leisure to work in the warmer hours of the day, with time for Arai's number lessons. And geometry, Mori reminded himself. Arai might be a natural at the conceptual part, he just needed the vocabulary.

"I think we should go look," Mori confirmed. And then just in case they encountered disappointment, he said, "If it didn't work, we can always go find Mizuko-chan tomorrow."

"Of course," Arai nodded decisively. "We'll keep trying."

As they rose and headed to the porch to put their shoes on, Mori allowed himself a moment to hope deeply, fervently, that the stakes had stayed put. Though not for the sake of the timetable, or the hothouse project itself. Having invented the project out of thin air, he could admit he wasn't terribly attached to the outcome one way or another. It would be useful, and convenient to have a hothouse. But he'd lived without one all this time, and could certainly go on doing so.

No, what he hoped for was that Arai had been right. However he had arrived at his solution, though Mori still didn't entirely understand it, he wanted it to be the right one. He wanted Arai to have that reward, that sense of accomplishment, at having devised an answer to a difficult problem, all on his own.

This was what Mori could offer Arai, and from the bottom of his heart, he wanted his friend to have it, and carry it with him.

**

"Well. Would you look at that." They stood side-by-side at the plot, both with their hands in their coat pockets, in the crisp December evening. The early sunset had just lit the sky in a last flare of bright gold and orange, with the deep indigo of cold night chasing up from the eastern horizon.

The shadow of the cottage was dark at their backs, but the upright stakes of the hothouse plot (crusted with dirt, and dented up by all those attempts with the mallet) caught the last touch of light.

"It worked," Mori said, relieved and satisfied, looking over at Arai who was clearly trying to stay as even-tempered as Mori, but losing the battle with his twitching grin. "You did it."

"Nah, I didn't do anything," Arai ducked his head. "It was just an idea."

"It was a good idea. I would never have thought of it." Mori nudged him slightly with an elbow. "Thanks. You saved us a lot of trouble."

Arai kept his head down, but the grin tugged wider, wider, and finally broke into a smile. He looked back up at the plot, beaming for all he was worth. "It worked," unable to restrain a short laugh of pure delight. "And tomorrow, we can build your hothouse. It'll be the best hothouse, too."

Mori chuckled, because Arai's enjoyment was infectious, and because he was so grateful that just this once, Arai was allowed his very own triumph. He wouldn't spoil the moment by mentioning that they had barely started, that there was a lot of work still to do. He didn't dwell on the strong possibility that Arai might be working elsewhere, when the time came to put up the walls, and the floor, and the roof.

He looked at the plot, and then up at the sunset sky, pink and peach, striped by dazzling gold clouds, and thought that times like this were too rare to waste on doubts and regrets. Even as he watched, the light was slipping away, life like a river running past, never stopping, and to turn his gaze to the dark past or the uncertain future, was to lose all grasp on the gift right in front of him. Whether it was a sunset or a month, or a lifetime, or just the sight of a friend's unguarded happiness, it was really all the same when you thought about it.

And when Arai leaned against his arm with a contented sigh, the clouds from their breath mingling in the air, and said, "Thanks. Thanks for letting me come back here," Mori let the twinge in his heart pass through him and away, and just nodded.

"Thank you for coming."


	22. Chapter 22

Though the almanac said these were the final days of the old year, they seemed more to Mori like an early premonition of spring. Every day was fine and clear, and--at least to his sense--warmer and brighter than he remembered any previous year's end being.

It was still bitter cold at dawn, when they rose and lit the oven and stove; they each bundled up in layers, straight out of bed, blowing the chill off their stiff fingers until tea was ready. The table in the front room remained by the stove, and at breakfast and dinner, neither he or Arai would stray far from its warmth. From dinner until bedtime, they took turns feeding sticks of firewood into the stove's iron belly, while they talked, and Arai practiced the day's lessons, and Mori whittled on the bowls and trays, and other items he had abandoned in his last spell of solitude.

But out under the bright winter sky, laboring with shovels, and the chisel and mallet, as the wooden frame of the hothouse rose by each post and beam, they could shuck their coats, scarves, and sweaters, roll up their sleeves, and soak up the sun. Mori put Arai in charge of his indoor plants again, and once again he saw them spreading their leaves, as Arai set them in the sunniest part of the clearing every day, watering them, and sharing his thoughts with them in a soft, cheerful tone, whenever he thought Mori wasn't looking.

For whatever reason, Arai remained shy about his preference for talking to the anemone, tomato, onions, and parsley. Perhaps because he understood it was one of those harmless eccentricities which people tolerated from children and the elderly, but looked a bit askance at, coming from a young man. Or perhaps it was because he felt free to share things with plants, that he was hesitant to discuss with other people. One evening, as he was carrying the tomato plant back into the kitchen for the night, Mori caught a passing snippet of discussion regarding shirts.

"...lucky you don't have to worry about clothes, especially buttons. My shirt buttons fall off and its so troublesome, if I lose them. Sometimes people get mad when you lose your buttons, even if you don't mean to, or if a hole gets in your shirt...."

Of course, as Arai had pointed out before, eavesdropping was extremely rude. And Mori couldn't very well bring up the topic of shirts and buttons right then, or find out who had given Arai grief over them previously, without admitting a breach of good manners. 

After thinking it through some, he decided once the hothouse frame was done, they'd do a laundry day, and maybe the subject would introduce itself.

**

For most of the week, Mori discovered a certain peace in resolving to appreciate each day for what it was; just as he had done while watching the sunset over the staked plot. It took a certain amount of vigilance, to not stray into wishing, or desiring anything he didn't already have. But every morning he watched Arai, measuring out tea in the kitchen, sorting the bowls for breakfast, and simply thanked his luck. He was grateful for the company. He was grateful that Arai had memorized Onuma's egg recipe. He was grateful when Arai could look at a list of items, and read "Six sunflower seeds," and, "Three potatoes," and, "Ten bowls," and that each day, he committed himself to learning a new word on the list.

Mori was particularly grateful that after the second night, Arai's dreams bothered neither of them. This may have been thanks to a steady, rigorous workload, or to Arai being in a place where he was happier. Or it may have been due to Mori's treatment of the disturbances this time around. 

Having twice seen that Arai quickly settled down with someone there to reassure him, Mori had left his bed straightaway on the first night, as soon as he was awakened. He sat by Arai's futon, touched his forehead, and his shoulder, and quietly told him that he was all right, it was only a dream, and he was safe. Moments later, Arai had given a last shuddering sigh, and rolled toward Mori, before settling down.

Keeping in mind the earlier debacle on the subject, Mori managed--after a bit of internal debate--to find a way to casually mention the next day that oh, Arai had sounded a little restless the night before, and had he slept okay?

This was met with some blushing, and apologies, and Mori reminded him that there was no offense to apologize for, and he was only bringing it up because Arai was bothered that he hadn't before. It wasn't even five minutes, he said, and all was quiet after that.

The next night was almost exactly the same, except that Arai murmured in his sleep, when Mori brushed the hair back from his brow.  
"Nnnh-Takashi?"

"I'm right here, you're all right."

Arai rolled toward him, fumbling a hand out from the quilts to pat at Mori's arm. "M'kay. Be careful. It's dark."

"I'll be careful," Mori told him. "Go ahead and sleep."

When Mori related this the next morning, he made it sound like a friendly anecdote, Arai talking to him in his sleep, and though Arai's embarrassment was still very much in evidence, he wasn't so much shamefaced this time, as curious what he could've been talking to Mori about.

"I don't remember dreaming at all," he said, and since Mori's goal was to keep him from stewing and worrying over his dreams (which surely would only make it worse for him), he merely shrugged.

"Then it must not have bothered you. That's good. Could you reach the soy sauce for me, please?"

Every night after that, Arai and Mori both slept soundly. 

**

On their fifth day of building, the day before New Year's Eve, Mori stepped back from the hothouse frame, stretching his arms and his back, and saw that they were practically done.

Arai was chiseling out the last of the angled supports for the roof beams, and there was only the threshold plank left to fit into the doorway. Mori thought he'd save that for last, giving the weight of the roof structure a chance to settle first.

He drank a few dippers of water from the well bucket, then rinsed and inspected his hands, before splashing his face, patting it dry with the hem of his shirt. For a few seconds, he watched Arai, chipping away diligently with the chisel, and when the boy took a break to flex his hand, Mori said, "Say. What do you think about going to find Mizuko-chan soon?"

Arai looked up from his task, and his concentrated frown smoothed to mild curiosity. "You mean about the water?"

Mori nodded. "If we can find her. Once we set that piece you're working on, we could go hike around."

"I wouldn't mind stretching my legs," Arai said. "But are you sure it's okay to stop work early? Tomorrow's New Year's Eve, right?"

"Look," Mori gestured to the building frame. "We're almost done."  
"Seriously?" Setting aside his tools, Arai clambered up and turned to get a wider view on the project. "I didn't realize...." 

He walked around the frame, touching the beams, and reaching up to the roof joints, resting his hand on the joists Mori had just finished. "It went up so fast."

"That's good teamwork," Mori smiled. "Next, we get to do the New Year banners, and you can watch me cook a lot of accidents."

"It will be good," Arai told him, still studying the construction with a curious thoroughness, eyes trailing along with his fingertips. "Nothing you make is bad."

Mori chuckled, gathering his tools to put away. "Don't know if I'd go that far."

Arai only smiled faintly in response, and with a last lingering brush of his hand, turned away to finish the last roof support piece.

**

They cut through the middle of the orchard, on their way back to the stream, ducking the branches of the pear trees, and stepping across the rows. Mori looked a few trees over as they passed, checking for frostbite, or any dead growth that needed clearing. 

He'd noticed that one tree, right in the center of the orchard had been looking poorly since the fall. It was the largest, and he thought perhaps the oldest of the trees, with a thick bent trunk, and roots that had long ago broken up from the ground nearby.

He had trimmed it well back, checked it for parasites, and made sure the rows around it were clear, so it would get plenty of water. Now he was at the point that all he could do was keep an eye on it, wait for spring, and see how it fared.

"You think this one's still sick?" Arai asked, crouching down with Mori, at the base of the tree.  
"Hard to say. " He pointed up at several bare, cut branches. "I trimmed those away, after you helped me last time."

"Poor old guy." Arai ran his hand down the trunk, with the sympathetic frown of someone trying to soothe an invalid. "Could it be something in the roots?"

"I guess I could do some digging and find out. I'd hate to expose the roots and have a freeze come, though."

"Yeah, that wouldn't be good." Arai touched the twisted knots in the bark, and then patted them reassuringly. "Maybe if there's time--if it's okay--I could come keep him company."

"Him?" Mori raised a curious eyebrow.  
"He's like a great-grandfather tree, don't you think? Reminds me of Hito-sama."

Mori looked at the tree, bemused. "I never thought of that." He cocked his head thoughtfully. "I could see a resemblance, I guess."

"We probably shouldn't tell Hito-sama that."  
"Yeah. Maybe not," Mori smiled.

**

The stream was a thin quiet trickle behind the orchard, heading up the hill. Mori had noticed it tended to dry up a bit in winter months, but he certainly hadn't seen it this low since he'd first unblocked the flow from Mizuko-chan's pool, a few years back.

In fact, it looked to him like what water was coming down was the result of snowmelt, and not the outflow from that pool at all. Which led him to wonder, whether something had gone awry with the pool over the past several days, or if this had something to do with the water spirit's cleaning project.

Every few minutes, Mori called for Mizuko-chan. But although they walked slowly uphill, giving her a chance to find them, there wasn't any answer. Though this wasn't at all uncommon. There had been some occasions in the past when Mori had tried for days to locate the spirit, having some question or another, only to later learn she'd been otherwise occupied, or too far out to hear him.

Luckily they did find her this time, all the way up at the narrow pool, down at the bottom, gliding around through the clearest, brightest water Mori thought he'd ever seen.

"Look at that," Arai said, going to his knees at the water's edge. "You can see every rock down there."

Mori came and knelt next to him, and indeed, he could make out the pebbles and patches of sand, and the texture of the rocks, in remarkable detail.

"Mizuko-chan made it like this?" Arai asked.  
"I guess so. She said she was cleaning it."

"But how?"  
"Good question," said Mori. He watched the water spirit, gleaming and flashing about at the bottom; nudging a stone or two here and there, with a long-fingered hand, hair floating about like a cloud of silver-white ink.

"She's kinda like a bird, building a nest," Arai remarked. And then something else caught his attention, and he pointed toward the middle of the pool. "Hey, check out that rock, it's got a rope around it."

Mori shifted aside, so he could see around the brilliant refractions of sunlight, sparking off the water's surface. There at the bottom, right in the center of the pool floor, sat a bright white stone, circular and flat like a millstone, with a red woven cord tied around, and coiled on top.

"That's new," Mori said.  
"You never saw it before?" Arai asked, and Mori shook his head.

It was hard to tell, given the depth of the pool and the clarity of the water, exactly how big the stone was, but he guessed it to be smaller than the lid of his mulch barrel. About the diameter of a large pumpkin, maybe. It would definitely be heavy, and going by the mass of thick red cord on top, Mori had an uneasy feeling that he was going to find out just how heavy, at some point.

He had to leave off inspecting this curiosity though, because Mizuko-chan came shimmering up to the surface of the water, to address them.

"It isn't ready yet," she announced, bobbing with her chin just above the water. Not treading water, but simply hanging there, suspended. "When the sun goes down tomorrow, come back."

"For what?" asked Mori, though he had a pretty good idea.  
"Bring a clean basket," the water spirit told him. "And empty all the places you keep water."

Mori had long since learned better than to waste his interviews with Mizuko-chan by asking useless questions like, 'Why', no matter how odd her requests were, since she rarely answered. Instead, he thought of all the places where he stored water. The rain barrel, the bath. A few jars in the kitchen.

"What about the well?" he asked.  
"That's taken care of," was all she said, before coming to the pool's edge and raising up on her elbows, to stare solemnly at Arai.

"Hello again," Arai smiled. "Your pool looks really nice. How've you been?"  
"You aren't keeping your stone close enough,” she stated. “It won't help, if you don't keep it close."

"My--." Arai faltered, taken aback for a moment. "Oh, your gift. I didn't want to lose it. So I--." He darted a look at Mori, and back to the water spirit. "I keep it safe, in a special place. I'm sorry, was that wrong?"

"You have more than other people. But you won't last, if it all spills away."  
"More of what?" asked Arai, now looking concerned.

Mizuko-chan made a wide gesture with one arm, encompassing the space above and around them. "What the stream takes from the river. What trees take from the sun. What the fish take from the water and the air."

Arai furrowed his brow over the riddle, as did Mori, who had grown up hearing all manner of profundities and lessons hidden in metaphors. But even he came up blank on this one; when Arai looked a question at him, he shrugged and shook his head.

"All those things are different," said Arai.  
"Different and the same," said the spirit. "Everything gives, and everything takes, in balance."

"Ah." Arai mulled over this some, still frowning. "I remember, Mizuko-chan said I don't have balance. Because I lost my name? But I don't know what that means."

"A name means a place in the world. A thing without a name doesn't have a place, with other things."

"You mean. Lost," Arai concluded, looking grave and somehow resigned, down at his hands. "I don't have a place, like other people."

Mori felt it would be unwise to interrupt the discussion at this juncture, since it appeared Mizuko-chan was--in her esoteric fashion--actually providing Arai with some sort of answers. But at the same time, he felt a strong urge to step in; to try and soften the impact that Mizuko-chan's statements must surely have on him. Her words may well be true, but in Mori's opinion, they didn't have to be so blunt.

But then the water rippled, as Mizuko-chan drew closer to Arai and, to Mori's astonishment, reached up to lay a hand--brief and dispassionate, yet strangely gentle--atop the boy's head. The long, delicate fingers curved back over the crown of Arai's bent head, and then carefully withdrew.

It was impossible for Mori to say whether the gesture was sympathetic, curious, or if it meant anything at all to the spirit; her countenance gave nothing away.  
"That's why you have to be careful."

Arai looked up, searching, listening, intently. "Mizuko-chan. If I went to the place where I lost my name, could I get it back again?"

Mori was definitely ready to interject at this point, to say that could be dangerous, and a very bad idea all around, but Mizuko-chan beat him to it.

"Things don't come back from there."  
"But--you said I was there before, right? How did I come back?"

"You didn't. Not the same."

Arai stared at the spirit, stunned, as she drew back and sank down in the water again. 

"Oh," he said quietly, after a moment. "I--I guess that makes sense."

Mizuko-chan turned toward Mori then, saying, "After the sun is gone tomorrow, come back," before dipping beneath the water once more, and flitting off, minnow-like, for the bottom of the pool.

Both young men watched her in silence for awhile; Mori with half an eye on Arai, who was plainly reeling from what he'd learned. 

He wondered what on earth you were supposed to say to someone who'd just heard they'd been irrevocably altered, by some experience they didn't even recall. Or that they were--as they'd perhaps feared all along--fundamentally different from other people.

Arai sat very still for quite a while, staring into the water, though not appearing to see it at all. And the more Mori thought about it, the more he ached inside, and the more he questioned whether he was cut out for the kind of silent devotion that never revealed itself, and never asked for any promises or reassurances in return.

Finally, when he didn't think he could stand it anymore, he broke the silence. "Some people might say I'm wrong. But I still think the person you are now, is what matters."

Arai turned slowly to him, looking a little careworn, a little sad, a little like he wanted to smile, but was just too tired this time.  
"Who is that person, though? I don't know anything about them."

They were sitting in such close proximity, that for the first time, Mori could really look into the young man's eyes. He looked, because he wanted to know how he could put a happier expression there. Wishing there were some way he could impart, without adding burdens or obligations, all that he felt, and knew about Arai.

He had remarkable eyes, when one looked closely. In all the light reflecting off the pool, Mori could see their color wasn't truly brown or black, but more of a dark hazel, with flecks of a lighter tone. From a distance, they didn't seem so striking; someone looking casually would never notice it. As with Arai himself, a person would have to take time and really observe, to appreciate what was there.

"That person is good. Generous, and true," Mori told him. "That person is kind to everyone he meets, and always puts consideration for others above himself. He works hard at everything he does, and tries to be better, every day. And his friends are very glad they got to know him."

"But I don't have a place. I don't fit with other people. I mean it's not that--. Some people have given me so much. You especially, and I'm thankful, I really really am. But." He stopped and looked down at his lap, wringing his fingers together.

"If I had a place, where I was supposed to be. If I had a name, so everybody wouldn't have to wonder.... Everybody's house has different rules, you know? And they all do things a certain way. And everywhere I go, it upsets people's houses, and the way they do things. If I belonged somewhere, that wouldn't happen. I wouldn't make trouble, and upset things."

Mori saw it wasn't a comfortable truth at all, but it was a truth. As hard as Arai might try, as good and conscientious a houseguest as he was, there was no getting around the fact that adding an extra person to most homes, meant a major upset in routine. And a person living a small village, with no name or family or past, would always--in certain people's minds--remain a stranger. Arai may be innocent in many ways, and he may be inclined to always think the best of others. But he was fully capable of perceiving what was right in front of him, and understanding what he saw.

Mori didn't think it would do much good to point out that Arai certainly didn't upset _his_ house any. It was doubtless an entirely unique situation. He lived alone, didn't rely on any strict routine, he had no neighbors to gossip, and he'd grown up in a place where visitors were in and out all the time, as a matter of course. And the fact that Arai got along fine at Mori's cottage didn't much help him anywhere else.

"That won't always be the case," he said instead. "With everything you've been learning, and as hard as you work, you're bound to find a place. It might take time, but I think that will happen."

"But. What about the thing she just said?' Arai glanced off to the pool, and turned his worried gaze back on Mori. "What if I just....don't belong? Because I'm something different."

It was a difficult question. Somehow Mori didn't think it would be wise, to tell Arai he could discount Mizuko-chan's judgments, just to ease his concern. Though he couldn't say he wasn't tempted.

"I don't know what Mizuko-chan sees. But I don't see anything stopping you from trying," he said. "People said it would be too hard for you to learn to read and write, but you're trying anyway. And you're learning. If you want to have a place, I think you should keep trying, no matter what anyone says."

"Yeah. I don't want to give up." Arai gave a shrug and a half-smile. "I mean, what else is there to do?"

"Go forward." That had been the only answer Mori ever knew. The only advice he felt qualified to give, really. 

Though after further thought, he added, "Don't forget, that you have friends. People who know that you're good, and want to see you do well."

"Is that what you want?" Arai asked, looking right at him, guileless as always, and Mori's breath caught in his throat.

_Anything to see you happy, I'd give anything I swear._ The fragmentary longing struck him raw and unbidden, and Mori had to collect himself before he could safely answer out loud.

"It's what I believe. That you'll do well."

Arai answered in the manner of one adopting a tenet of faith, or making an earnest, solemn promise. And hearing his answer, Mori knew that in some manner yet to be wholly understood, he would belong to this young man, for life.

"If you believe it, then I'll do everything I can."


	23. Chapter 23

For the next day and a half, they worked every bit as industriously on the New Year preparations, as they had on framing the hothouse. Since Mori was putting together the Osechi dishes mainly by dim recollection and guesswork, he gave Arai the job of preparing the banners and cleaning up the paper lanterns which had gathered ages of dust on the shelves of the root cellar.

He had offered to draw an outline of the banner characters on the paper scrolls, so Arai could paint them in, but the young man asked if Mori would just write them on a small piece of paper, so he could copy them. Having seen similar signs all over the village before, Arai knew what the finished product should look like, he just didn't know what the symbols meant. So Mori wrote down a few traditional phrases; for good fortune, health in the new year, a blessing for a farmer's crops, telling Arai he might not want to worry over memorizing these words, since they had several meanings, and weren't often used in this context.

Nevertheless, Arai wanted to make sure he got the banners right, so he copied the characters in pencil first, while Mori watched, and when the work was approved, Arai nodded smartly and said okay, he'd try it by himself now.

While Mori was in the kitchen, soaking beans and shredding burdock root, and trying to remember how to make the glaze for simmered chestnuts, he was frequently tempted to wander out to the porch and peek, just to watch Arai at work. But then the young man might think Mori was trying to supervise him, or critique his work, which could only dampen his resolve. Mori had already explained, as it had been explained to him, that calligraphy of this type should always be met with a resolved spirit, and that hesitation or second-guessing would show up in the result, and possibly spoil it.

Even if he was an amateur, even if he'd had relatively little practice with writing, Mori had said, Arai could still make a good banner, if he brought the correct spirit to the work. Allowing Arai to find that spirit, and bring it to the paper, was the most important thing, and for that to happen, Mori couldn't hover or interrupt him. Even though he was tempted, just to watch.

**

On the morning of New Year's Eve, they went out to the hothouse frame, and Arai helped Mori pound the last floor joist into place. With that done, they went indoors and proceeded with a vigorous cleaning of the cottage; floors, windows, the front porch and the roof gutters. They took the rugs and quilts out back and hung them over the laundry line to beat the dust out, shook out the futons and draped them over the porch railing to air, scrubbed the kitchen top to bottom (working around the various dishes still in progress), and then emptied the bath water and rain barrel, according to Mizuko-chan's cryptic request, and scrubbed both vessels out thoroughly.

Mori would liked to have indulged in a long hot soak at the end of all that, but going by what he guessed might happen with that big stone at the bottom of the pool, and their instructions to return at sunset, a hot bath probably wasn't in the cards for him.

So towards the end of the day, with sunset soon approaching (and Onuma at some point too, presumably), Mori heated a large basin of water for himself, from his storage jugs, and another for Arai, and they took turns in the bath, scrubbing off and rinsing on the stone seat.

**

"Okay, if you get the lamp, I'll carry the basket," said Mori.  
"You want your gloves?" Arai asked.

"Yeah, good idea. You should bring your work gloves, too."  
"And you got the matches, right?"  
Mori patted his pocket. "Got them."

They were setting up to head out to the pool, with the sunset sky flaming orange outside, and a chill breeze kicking up. Mori checked and saw that Arai had his coat, a scarf, and his work gloves, and was at that moment thoughtfully fingering the simple drawstring bag Mori had given him, to put that little stone of his in.

Mizuko-chan had said he should keep the stone closer, and the obvious solution seemed to be to wear it. So Mori had found the bag, and threaded a length of thin cord through the opening, long enough that Arai could wear it around his neck, and hide it under his shirt. 

Since then, they both agreed that nothing seemed different, whether Arai wore the stone on him, or not. But they also agreed that since Mizuko-chan had been so specific, it couldn't do any harm to go along with her instruction.

Incidentally, Mori learned that Arai had kept the stone in a little wooden box with a hinged lid, where he saved certain items he'd found and treasured. Mori had caught a glimpse of him one night, sitting crosslegged on his bed and looking through the box, before putting out his lamp for the night. There was a bright red feather, which might have come from a cardinal. A handkerchief, a colored string ball. 

That was all Mori saw, before he had to turn away. Both out of respect for Arai's privacy, and because the sight of the young man, cherishing his humble collection quite frankly threatened to break Mori's heart.

 

**

"So you think she wants us to get that big rock at the bottom?" Arai asked, shoving his hands in his pockets, as they headed up along the stream, to Mizuko-chan's pool.

"That's what I'm guessing."  
"Do you know what you're supposed to do with it?"

"Move it somewhere," Mori supposed. "Maybe for a purification."  
Arai glanced over at him. "How does a stone purify things?"

"In this case, I think it's the water in her pool. In the temple I grew up in, running water was used for purification. If that stone at the bottom is one that changes currents, then if we move it somewhere, I imagine the water in the pool is supposed to follow."

"You mean we'd get to see it?" Arai brightened with excitement. "I wondered what that would look like."

Mori pointed out the stream, still barely trickling past them. "You see what it's like now? I think she's already done something to stop the flow from the pool."

"So you think Mizuko-chan is storing up the water, and cleaning it?"  
"Could be," Mori said. "I'm really not sure." Briefly, the notions of fasting and abstinence came to mind as well, and though it was an intriguing possible connection, it seemed a bit esoteric to go into at the moment.

"Do you think we're supposed refill the bath from the pool water? That would take a lot of trips, with a bucket."

"I hope not. It would be easier just to do it from the well, if that were the case," Mori answered.

Arai gazed upstream thoughtfully, gently swinging their work lamp along as he walked next to Mori. "How many trips would that be, I wonder."

Mori chuckled. "You want another math problem to work out?" He'd introduced Arai to the concept of word problems, while building, and then cooking, and Arai had enjoyed them so much, he'd taken to looking for more of the puzzles wherever he could find opportunity. 

"Do you know how to work it?" he asked Mori hopefully.

"I could estimate it, but you'd have to divide a big number. When we get some time, I'll show you how to count it."

**

When they reached the pool, Mizuko-chan was there to meet them, sitting half out of the water in the shallow part near the stream outlet, holding one wet end of the red rope.

"Happy New Year, Mizuko-chan," Arai called. "I've got that stone with me this time."

"I can see," the water spirit replied, looking him over. "It looks better now."  
Then she turned her gaze on Mori, silvery eyes glimmering in the dying light of the sun. "The basket is clean?"

"I poured well water on it. Is that okay?"

"It will serve." Then she peered at his leather work gloves. "Take those off. They're tainted."

Mori winced at his lapse in judgment. Of course he shouldn't be touching purifying water with animal hide. "Thank you, I should've thought of that. My apologies." He tugged off the gloves and shoved them into his coat pockets, and then glanced into the pool. "I ought to rinse my hands now."

"Let that person do it," Mizuko-chan pointed to Arai, whose work gloves were sturdy canvas.

"Oh. I--." Arai glanced between them. "What do I do?"

"Sorry," Mori answered. "I was hoping we wouldn't have to get our hands wet. Just get some water--," he cupped his palms to demonstrate, "--and pour it over my hands."

They knelt down together at the poolside, and Arai stripped off his gloves, and then cupped a double-handful of water up from the pool. "Huh. It's not that cold," he remarked, before leaning over and dumping the water over Mori's hands. "Like that?"

Mori was surprised to find he was right. The water was cool, but nowhere near as frigid as he'd expected. "Yeah, maybe a couple more times."

Arai nodded, and complied promptly, and then when they were shaking the water off their hands, he looked off toward the fading glow behind the hills. "Want me to light the lamp now?"

"Sure." Mori swiped his fingers dry on his coat, before digging the matchbox out of his trouser pocket, and tossing it over.

Soon enough, the lamp was burning brightly, throwing a golden wavery glow across the water, and rock walls. Arai set it on a flat patch of dirt out of the way, and then the two young men turned to Mizuko-chan, who was looking intently off toward the west.

Guessing that 'after sunset' meant the sun should be well and truly gone, and that the water spirit would know that time better than he, Mori waited quietly, and Arai followed his cue.

Finally, after a few minutes, Mizuko-chan turned, rose up on her knees and offered up the end of the rope in both hands. Not toward Mori, curiously, but to Arai. After a perplexed look back at Mori, who--equally perplexed--gestured that he should go ahead, the young man knelt across from the water spirit.

"Don't let the rope touch the earth," she instructed him. "And don't take the stone away."

Arai politely furrowed his brow. "Uh. But it's tied on?"  
"Invite it to come up. It will come."

"How do I--?" Arai began, and Mizuko-chan handed him the end of the rope.

"It's time," she pronounced, and having no other choice, the young man took hold of the offering in both hands and, probably just out of reflexive habit, gave a short bow.

"Okay. Well." Arai hesitated and looked back at Mori. "I guess I try, huh?"  
Mori came to stand next to him. "I'll help, if you need it."  
"You sure you don't want to....?" Arai offered up the rope.

"I thought I would, but." He tilted a shrug at Mizuko-chan, and grinned faintly. "I guess she picked you."

"Long as you don't mind."  
"Not at all. Just let me know if you need help."

Still kneeling, Arai cautiously pulled up some of the slack on the dripping wet rope, peering into the now shadowy depths of the pool, where the lamplight occasionally bent and quivered across the bottom. 

"Invite it up, huh," he murmured to himself, casting occasional looks at Mizuko-chan, who watched the bottom of the pool, and the movement of the rope, impassively.

After a few draws on the rope, Arai had more than he could hold in one hand, so Mori knelt next to him once more, offering to take the extra and hold it off the ground.

The texture of the rope caught his attention right away. It was woven from a yielding pliant fiber, not unlike silk, though he'd never seen a silk rope so long and thick. In the lamplight, it was a rich crimson color, and the water dripping from its end sparkled like clear polished gemstones. He gathered the rope as Arai pulled, making a dripping loop in one hand, finding it a pleasing tactile sensation.

"Soft, isn't it," Arai commented, leaning over the water and drawing the rope up, and Mori made a quiet sound of assent. "Kinda feels like silk."  
"I was just thinking that," Mori smiled.

"Ah--." Arai stilled, and Mori saw he'd reached the end of the slack on the rope. Now it cut a taut diagonal down to the floor of the pool, where the stone was barely visible as a vague white shape in the gloom.

Arai gave a steady tug to test, and then put his strength into it. "Wow. Okay."

"Did it move?"  
"I don't think so." He looked over at Mizuko-chan again, who appeared firmly occupied by the play of light across the rippling surface of the pool, and then turned his attention back to the rope.

"How do you invite a big stone up from the bottom of a pool?" he mused aloud.

"Well," said Mori, after thinking some, and becoming convinced Mizuko-chan was leaving it up to them. "It's believed that certain rocks have their own spirits. Maybe you talk to it."

Arai idly stroked his thumbs over the rope, while he considered this. "It seems a little weird," he finally admitted. And then clarified, "Talking to something you can't really see."

"Just be polite. You're good at that."

"Hm," Arai answered, with a concentrated look. He wrapped his fingers around the rope again, letting the tension out slightly, and then called to the water. "Hello? We're sorry to bother you. But Mizuko-chan asked us to invite you up. We don't want to take you, we'd just like your company for a little while. If you don't mind."

He drew up a bit on the rope. "It would be nice, if you wanted to join us. We're having a celebration, for the New Year. Morinozuka-san made all kinds of good food, and his neighbor Onuma-san is coming. I never saw a New Year celebration before, but I think it will be fun..."

As Arai warmed up to the monologue, Mori quickly caught on that he was taking the same approach with the possible spirit in the stone, that he used around the house with the anemone and the kitchen plants. Whereas, from the temple, Mori had learned one should address unseen elemental spirits with sober formality and ritual phrases, Arai--having had no such example--was doing what seemed natural to him.

He spoke respectfully, but in a friendly, unaffected manner. His invitation, while not at all direct, was wholly sincere. As he spoke, he pulled gently at the rope, until the weight of the stone resisted him, and then let it go slack again.

"....it must be troublesome to be disturbed like this, but you might like it up here. It's a nice night, with all the stars out. I can see lots more stars here, than down in the village. It's amazing, how many there are. Sometimes, it's like you can reach over your head and touch them...."

Sitting by, curious and patient, with the rope in his hands, Mori came to understand that while Arai's friendly words ambled a bit, what really mattered was his intent. And the more Mori listened, the more he felt himself drawn in by it. A little shy, a little uncertain, but earnest and welcoming, and free of any motive except to help and to please.

Arai went on to talk about the property, how he enjoyed being here, and Mori could feel the truth in that. The knowledge resonated in him, that this land, and the cottage, was Arai's favorite place to be. That he felt safe, certain, and happy here.

Mori had no idea how he came by these impressions; in different circumstances, he might have chalked it up to imagination, or wishful thinking. But as Arai persisted in his encouragement, Mori was increasingly sure that he was directly receiving that intent, by some unknown means.

This impression was only strengthened, when Arai brought Mori in as a topic for his speech. "....Morinozuka-san brought a basket, so we can carry you," he told the stone. "It's a good strong basket, and he cleaned it out at his well yesterday. He told me that in the big towns, important people ride around in boxes with doors, and other people carry them...."

What Mori got from that, was a startling range of feelings, like multiple echoes bouncing back to him. The swell of admiration, trust, and most surprisingly a fierce bright affection. It wasn't something he could possibly describe if ever asked, except to say that these couldn't be his own feelings, he was experiencing. They were similar in character, but varied in the particulars. Like hearing complementary melodies blown on a reed flute, and then plucked from the strings of a shamisen.

He was aware that it should have seemed strange, especially when Arai turned to hand him a wet length of rope and asked, with a calm, dreamy expression, "What's a shamisen?" 

Except that it didn't feel at all strange or untoward. Mori gathered the new loop just as calmly, just as if he'd been expecting it, and said, "It's a musical instrument with strings. I'll show you a picture."

"You have one in a book," Arai smiled, and then turned back to the water. "Morinozuka-san has been sharing his books with me," he called down. "I don't know enough words to read yet, but someday I will. He has a book with stories, and pictures, like Hito-sama in the village. One time he read a story to me...."

Arai went on to recount the story as he drew the rope up, with hardly any resistance at all. And as the loops of crimson rope in Mori's hand increased, so increased the strength of Arai's feeling, within him. He felt embraced by a kindness he had only ever seen from the outside before; a fresh and unrestrained generosity, warming everything it touched.

It was intoxicating, and at the same time irresistible. He wondered a bit giddily, if this was how the plants felt, when Arai tended them. Following this thought, Arai laughed softly.

"You know what I'm thinking," Mori murmured, unable to help smiling himself, even while something far back in the instinctual part of his mind said it wasn't possible, this should seem very peculiar, and maybe he should stop and think about this.

"That would be nice, if it made the plants happy."  
Mori felt Arai's hope and pleasure at that idea, sinking in and glowing bright in his chest, and wondered if he could withstand such direct communication all the time.

"I think it's the rope," Arai answered, slipping his fingers down the satiny braiding, and sure enough Mori felt a ghost of a soft caress, making him shiver a little. "Because the stone couldn't hear me, all the way down there." He pulled gently, steadily, and as Mori gathered the loops from him, he could see the stone floating closer to the surface.

"Why do you think that?" he asked, although inexplicably, it made perfect sense to him.  
"Because the more rope I give you, the better I can hear you. Your knees are getting stiff, aren't they."

"It's not a problem," Mori answered, thinking he should make an effort to clear his mind, so Arai wasn't distracted.

"It's okay, I like hearing you. It's nice." He smiled down into the water, pulling up the last few lengths of rope, until the stone broke the surface, bobbing gently. "Hello," he bowed. "Thank you for coming to see us."

Having observed the proceedings in neutral silence all this time, Mizuko-chan now swam from the shallows of the pool, over to where Arai and Mori knelt. She instructed them to put the stone in the basket, but leave the rope tied on, stating that when they removed the rope, the stone's weight would return.

Sure enough, Arai lifted the large circular stone from the water with barely any effort at all. He stood with it, and Mori rose with the rope to follow, as he carried it over to the basket, laying it carefully inside. 

Thinking ahead to a possible long hike back toward the cottage, Mori asked whether they could leave the rope on, until it was placed, but unfortunately he was declined.

"It belongs here. It can't leave," Mizuko-chan said. "That stone goes in the center of your trees. You should be away from it, when the moon is at the top," pointing a thin finger to the sky directly overhead.

"You mean the center of the orchard?" Mori asked, to be sure.

"With the fruit trees. There's a place for it. But don't stay there long."

Presumably, Mori thought, because the stone would draw all the stored water from the pool. This sounded a bit dubious, to him.

"Won't that flood the trees?"

"They won't be harmed. It will be good, later on." 

Mori was on the verge of asking how, when the water spirit pointed to a pile of stones he hadn't previously noticed. "Choose one for each place you save water."

If this was going where he thought it was, then starting sometime around midnight, they were liable to be in for a wet time of it. Off to the side, Arai--still holding his end of the rope up--snickered quietly.

Mori sent him a crooked grin. "We should untie that other stone first, before one of us drops this rope."   
Arai nodded, Mori felt the agreement, before bending to the task. He got the knot untied easily enough, but then midway through pulling the rope from around the stone, he faltered. The stone was getting heavier now, by a good bit, Mori could tell. He hefted the coiled rope up over his head, so it crossed his chest from shoulder to hip, and moved in to lend a hand.

Between the two of them, they were able to rock the stone up on its flatter end, and free the loosened rope, both of them in silent agreement that carrying the thing down to the orchard would be no easy task. But Arai was entirely willing to help, and eager to witness the outcome; this was as clear to Mori as if the thoughts were his own.

What also became clear, was that Mori should have thought twice before draping himself in the rope. 

Arai was on the verge of handing him the end of it, when suddenly he stilled, with a curious expression.  
"I can feel your heartbeat." 

He was looking down at his hands, holding the rope gently, just as Mori experienced a bewildering split in his consciousness. He was aware of Arai's grasp as something directly tangible, Arai's fascination at this new phenomenon, and at the very thought of Arai holding him in this manner, the full measure of his own utter, speechless devotion broke loose from his control.

Arai looked up at him then, in wonder and dawning comprehension, and Mori's heart fluttered erratically, skipped a beat, and though he was incapable of moving a muscle, he had never, ever wanted to reach out and touch another person so much as he did right then. 

He wanted to be closer, to feel Arai's warmth, and his every breath. He wanted to touch his cheek, trace his smile, he wanted--

"You....what does that mean?" Arai asked, quiet and aching with so much hope, and just as Mori realized what a predicament this really was, that indulging his desire was perilous in such a close connection—because impossible as it seemed, this connection was very real, directly tangible, and not at all metaphorical--he felt Arai's heartbeat kicking up in anticipation, and then a searing twinge in his chest as his own heart struggled to match its rhythm.

He gasped in a breath, and all at once his knees were weakening and his head felt as if it was floating far off. It quickly got worse, as Arai's longing flickered to palpable alarm, and everything started going dim and gray around the edges, black spots blooming in Mori's vision. 

The bone-jarring impact of his knees striking the gravel brought him back momentarily, enough to remember he had to stay upright, there was something he must not drop. But the rupturing pain in his chest overwhelmed all thought; his limbs were too numb, and his heart felt twisted wrong-side-out, thumping a ragged, backwards double-time.

"...Takashi!"  
"Take it away now..."  
"--okay, I've got him--"

There were voices, swinging shadows, a high scream of panic down his nerves. A wall of darkness swept down and he struggled with all his might to stay, to soothe that panic, to rise up and protect someone more precious than anything. He fought the deathly cold, the pain and suffocation, but a sudden force yanked him roughly and--

 

nothing.


	24. Chapter 24

The first thing Mori saw when he opened his eyes was light. A wild white blaze from the pool, bathing the rock walls in noontime brilliance, and spilling upward in a wide column, high into the night sky. The second thing he saw was that he knelt alone on the ground. But atop the wall at the pool's far end, where the path began, there stood an unfamiliar figure.

It was a man, tall and austere, wearing heavy formal robes; layers of crimson, white, and yellow, with glittering embroidery and long trailing sleeves. The man stood straight and still, hands tucked in his sleeves, and he marked Mori with a stern, fierce expression. 

Whether this was someone good or bad, Mori couldn't tell, but under the man's gaze he sensed power, and the indifferent ruthlessness of river floods, wildfires, barren rocky mountainsides. This person was strong, immensely so, but for all he looked it, Mori couldn't believe he was human.

Some recent calamity jangled in the haze of his memory, and Mori was tempted to ask whether he was dead, if this was the afterlife. But a cold primal instinct warned him against speaking to that person at the top of the path. Attracting the notice of someone like this wasn't wise, whatever he was, and Mori would do best keeping quiet

Instead, following a mysterious compulsion, he bowed from his knees, to a low respectful angle. Held the bow for a breath or two, and then straightened and glanced up.

The man went on glaring down at him, his sharp features cast into severe lines by the bright light, and then gave a barely perceptible dip of his chin, before gliding backwards a few steps, and disappearing into darkness.

**

When he opened his eyes the second time, it was darker, colder, and every inch of him was throbbing with pins and needles. The walls of his chest felt battered on the inside, and he was spluttering to breathe through a shocking faceful of water.

With a clumsy, numb hand he sought to swipe the water from his eyes, but someone was there ahead of him, wiping his face with a cloth and holding him up, saying, "No, don't try to move yet."

He blinked Onuma into focus, scowling down with exasperated worry, and next to him, Arai, arms clutched at his chest, eyes wide and frightened. The unnaturally close connection between them was broken now, but Mori could almost still taste the panic that had disrupted his heartbeat and breathing, twisted up in a jarring foreign memory of unspeakable loss and hungry darkness.

_His nightmares._ An unquiet knowledge whispering from beneath Mori's queasy confusion: _That's how he feels in them._

"You okay?" he managed to croak, and Arai gave a jerky nod, apparently unable to speak.  
"The kid's fine, but you're a damned lucky idiot," Onuma said "I'd expect a shrine boy to know better than to fool around with a binding cord like that."

Mori drew in several painful breaths, and looked around. "What happened to it?"  
"Gave it back to Mizuko-chan. Got it off you just in time too, looks like."

A binding cord. That was important for some reason, but Mori was having trouble putting things together at the moment. "Where'd that person come from?"

"Who?" Onuma glanced around briefly, and then caught Mori's arm and pushed his loosened sleeve back to check his pulse. It didn't seem like the first time, either.  
"There was someone, up at the top of the path. Just a minute ago."

"You were out cold. I didn't see anyone."  
Mori looked to Arai, who shook his head. And then he remembered he hadn't seen either Onuma or Arai there at the time. "Did my heart stop?" he asked, since it was the only explanation he could think of.

"No, but you stopped breathing. Not for long." Onuma's jaw clenched, like he was trying not to say something harsh, and then he shook his head. "Honestly."

Mori was cold and uncomfortable and his head hurt, but his strength was coming back, and he wanted to sit up on his own. Mostly because he was conscious of how terrified Arai still was, and it seemed important to show him he wasn't hurt, wasn't debilitated by the mishap.

Onuma grumbled at him some, but he let Mori sit up and rub his temples, while he dug in the pack at his side for a familiar heavy bottle, and a cup. "Hope you don't mind sharing," he muttered, pouring a healthy shot of liquid in the cup, and holding it out. Mori looked askance at the drink, and Onuma gave him a firm stare. "It's medicinal. Drink up."

"Doctor's orders?" Mori sighed, and took the cup. Whatever was in there, it was strong enough to make his eyes water, though when he took a tentative sip, he barely tasted it. Probably the numbness, he thought, and tossed the drink back just to be done with it.

He did feel it going down, a hot spreading glow through his insides, smoothing down some of the jagged aches, and he coughed a little, handing the cup back. "Thanks."

Onuma said nothing, just refilled the cup halfway and handed it to Arai, addressing him in a gentler tone. "I doubt you'll like this, but it'll help. Just take it slowly."

With slightly shaky hands, Arai frowned into the cup, blinking, and wrinkled his nose. "What is it?"

"Very good wine," said Onuma, grinning for the young man's benefit. "It's smooth, but it packs a kick."

Arai swallowed a little from the cup, then grimaced and coughed, and his eyes watered, and Onuma gave him a companionable pat on the back. Meanwhile, Mori was trying to piece together some reasoning for what had happened, and Onuma's chastising words.

"The rope was a ritual object," he finally stated. "But nothing like that ever happened in a ritual before."

"Most rituals you've seen were done somewhere civilized, I imagine," Onuma told him. "In case you haven't noticed by now, we're not exactly in a civilized place."

"But we weren't performing a ritual," Mori told him. "Mizuko-chan told us to bring the stone up, that's all." It was just another of her mysterious errands, from what he could tell.

Onuma raised an eyebrow at him, glasses flashing in the lamplight. "You don't think following a spirit's instructions is a ritual? How do you expect they get started?"

Oh. He had a good point. "Have you ever seen that rope before?"  
"No," Onuma shook his head. "That's a new one."

"I wanted to drop it," Arai suddenly spoke up, in a hoarse, uneven voice. "But Mizuko-chan said not to. I'm so sorry I hurt you. I didn't want--I didn't know what to do."

"No, it was my fault," Mori told him. "I don't think it would've been good, if you'd dropped it. I should've been more careful, in the first place."

"Are you really okay?" Arai's fingers were knotted together in his lap, and his whole body was cramped tight with anxiety, and before he could think to govern the impulse, Mori pushed up and crawled over, getting a stiff, sore arm around the young man's shoulders. He was half-aware of Onuma turning aside discreetly, packing away his bottle and cup, as he drew Arai in closer.

"I'm fine, I promise."  
Arai slouched against him, so tense he was trembling, and fumbled a death grip on the back of Mori's coat.

"I'm sorry I scared you. But it's okay now." He rubbed Arai's hunched shoulder, and stroked the messy strands of hair off his forehead, just as he'd done after Arai's nightmares. He felt no reason to restrain himself, just because Arai was awake and conscious of the attention this time, nor was he uncomfortable, knowing Onuma had risen and strolled off along the poolside with his lamp, courteously pretending to ignore them. 

He knew something had altered his judgment, in those seconds before he lost consciousness. Faced with the final closing darkness, his body and mind swiftly failing, Mori's will and his spirit had maintained but one objective, to the very last.

The safety of Arai, now in his arms, head lowered to Mori's chest. Listening intently, Mori realized, to his heart. At the end of everything, he was all that mattered.

There was no retreating from knowledge of this magnitude. It was immutable, and undeniably life-altering. For a brief time, their intentions, their character, their innermost workings had been bound together. And whether it was the work of accident or fate, whether it was fortunate or dangerously mistaken, it couldn't be undone. Together or separately, if they were to remain honest, he and Arai could never be the same.

In the course of his rumination, he became aware that Arai's fearful tension was easing. He stayed close for comfort, but his breathing had evened out, and he'd released his desperate clutch on Mori's coat, in favor of a firm embrace around his back.

Mori was further aware that Onuma still loitered nearby, that their task for Mizuko-chan still needed finishing, and that the cold rocky ground was not actually all that comfortable a place to sit.

"Feeling better now?" he asked Arai quietly, and after a moment, the young man shifted over a bit, and nodded.  
"Yeah. Yeah, I'm good."

Mori drew back and looked at him, to be sure. He seemed a good deal more somber than usual, but it appeared he'd regained his equilibrium, and was ready to face the evening again.

"Do you remember what Mizuko-chan told us to do?" Mori asked, partly because he himself was hazy on the details.

"Ah--" Arai's gaze flicked to the basket, with the stone. "She said....take the stone to your trees. Put it in the middle. And you thought the orchard was going to flood." He leaned around to point past Mori, still keeping one arm around him. "Then she said you're supposed to pick one of those stones for all the places you save water."

Mori nodded, remembering now. "Right." He'd meant to ask the spirit which ones he should choose, before he'd bumbled his way into a near-death experience. "We need one for the bath. One for the rain barrel....."  
"Two for those big jugs," Arai filled in.

"You want to pick them out?" Mori asked  
"Me?" 

Mori wasn't sure why he'd asked; his head still wasn't altogether clear. But Arai had drawn the first stone up, and it seemed right that he should choose the other four. 

It may not have mattered; one stone may well be as good as any other in the pile. But if there was a distinction to be made, Arai was likely in better shape to make it than Mori, and surely it would help, giving him something to focus on besides the nasty scare he'd just had.

"I don't know which ones to pick," he said. "You can, if you want."

Arai drew further back then, so he could look Mori over with a sharp, candid eye. Unexpectedly, he brought his hand around, laying it cool and soft on Mori's forehead. 

"You're all mixed up still," he murmured. "But it's all right. I'll help you out."

"Thank you," Mori answered, feeling humbled, and a little staggered by the affectionate gesture. It was so long since anyone had touched him like that, not since he'd been a child, and he scarcely knew how to react. 

Only a few minutes ago he'd felt--and shared--his overwhelming desire for just this kind of contact, and had things not gone terribly amiss, there was no telling what it would have unleashed between them. And now he was left conflicted. Like he'd reached for a burning candle and been badly scorched, but knew that unless something held him in check, he would surely end up reaching for it again.

Arai had summed it up rightly. He was all mixed up. And to his discomfiture, Arai was already getting up to fulfill his request, before Mori could sort himself out.

Impulsively, he reached for Arai's retreating arm, loosely grasping his wrist. "Wait...."

Arai stilled, looking back at him with a serious, calm expectancy, and Mori found he was at a total loss for words. Everything was different, and they both knew it, and he had no idea where to begin, or how to go on from here.

"Is--is there anything you want to ask me?" he tried. Because surely Arai must wonder, surely after being exposed to that overload of feeling, he would have dozens of questions.

Arai tipped his head and crooked a little smile at him; one that was patient, and remarkably serene, and Mori was somewhat devastated to realize that this was his strength, this was Arai's selflessness and determined resiliency coming to his aid. 

From the very first, he had been conscious of this young man's unique vulnerabilities, but at long last Mori was beginning to appreciate that beneath the honesty and sometimes painful openness, Arai was uniquely powerful as well.

"When we have the time," came the answer. Glancing over at Onuma, and then out at the pool nearby. "Right now we have a lot to do. But when we can talk." He reached down, and brushed Mori's hand with his fingertips. "Is that okay?"

Mori swallowed, and applied all his self-control to releasing Arai's arm, instead of clutching and tugging him back down. "Yeah. Good idea."

 

Onuma came strolling back, once Arai had moved to the side of the pool to sort through the stones. "Your constitution must be something unbelievable," he remarked. "If you decided you've had enough excitement for this lifetime, and wanted to go home to bed, I wouldn't blame you at all."

"I don't want to cancel our plans, if that's what you're getting at," Mori said. "I'll be fine."

"It's only because I've known you long enough, that I believe you. Nobody else would," Onuma said. "Still, would you mind if I make a suggestion?"

"By all means."  
"Let me and the kid get that basket downhill. I'll give you my pack and lamp to carry."

Mori frowned, knowing he already owed this man for saving his life, and had no idea where to begin repaying him. "Honestly, I feel better now. I can't ask a guest to do that."  
"Would you humor a guest? I don't mean any offense, but you look absolutely terrible."

Mori noticed that Arai, having set aside two stones already, had gone entirely still, awaiting Mori's answer. Forcing Mori to weigh the inconvenience of a laborious task, against causing two people to worry unduly over him.

"If it will make you happy," he relented, watching Arai draw a breath of relief. "And if you don't mind carrying things, I'll send you back with some of this water. Could you choose an extra stone, for Onuma-san?" he asked Arai.

"Of course," Arai turned that little smile on him again, and despite his reservations, Mori felt better.


	25. Chapter 25

Once they were back at the cottage, Arai--having evidently resolved himself to take the initiative--steered Mori over to the table in the front room, and prevailed on him to rest.

"I'll take care of the stove and the lamps, and everything. Don't worry, okay?" Mori wanted to protest that he was entirely capable of a host's duties, but from the way Arai had been watching him ever since they left Mizuko-chan's pool, he sensed he'd have an argument on his hands, if he tried.

Arai and Onuma had managed just fine, holding up their respective ends of the basket and keeping a sharp eye on Mori, all the way down the hill, and through the orchard. Their pace with the heavy stone wasn't quick, but it was steady, and secretly Mori was glad of that. While his arms and legs seemed in good working order, his extremities still ached, and if they'd been moving any faster, he would've had a hard time hiding the fact that he was getting winded.

He had certainly persevered through worse afflictions though, and the entire way back down to the orchard, he was acutely conscious of Onuma shouldering a burden that ought to have been his. It vexed his sense of responsibility, and shamed him as well, to know that if he'd only been more mindful of that rope and its influence, he might have avoided a lot of trouble for all three of them.

Unfortunately, what was done was done, and once they had set the stone in place--at the center of the orchard, in a rounded declivity just as Mizuko-chan had said, near the base of the old ailing pear tree--Mori decided he may as well accept the consequences with decent grace. Which included letting his concerned friends boss him around, until such time as they felt satisfied he wasn't about to keel over any moment.

Looking on the bright side, having Mori obey his requests could do Arai's self-esteem a great deal of good, in the long run.

Luckily, Onuma had chosen not to let his former annoyance at Mori's mistake spoil his holiday mood. While Arai set to stoking the wood stove, lighting the lamps in the cottage, and those they'd hung outdoors, Onuma took charge in the kitchen. He exclaimed heartily over the Osechi spread Mori had already prepared, and straightaway began loading bowls and platters with an assortment of foods, including what he himself had brought.

It wasn't long before the cottage felt warm and bright, and bustling with activity. There was Arai, decorating the place with the pine branches they'd gathered earlier, and hanging the scrolls he'd painted, out by the front door, while Onuma was keeping up a steady stream of conversation, bringing food and drink to the table, and occasionally prevailing on both the other young men to taste this or that dish. 

The result, Mori saw from his vantage point at the table, was a cozy sort of holiday chaos. Though on a much smaller scale, it was reminiscent of the temple kitchen during festivals, where a dozen or so monks would've been laughing and jostling and bumping elbows, as well as the rare occasions he'd been invited to join his employers' families and neighbors at holiday time, back when he'd been traveling.

The steady flow of good food was partly to account for the rise in their collective mood, but he saw that primary credit went to Onuma, for smoothing out the crease of worried responsibility in Arai's brow, with diverting jokes and anecdotes about holiday traditions, as well as for skillfully drawing Mori into the conversation with debate over recipes, and the finer points of traditional observance.

"....Now what I remember was Namahage, when I was a kid. Scared the hell out of all of us, when that guy made the rounds--here, taste this plum sauce--." Onuma handed a spoon to Mori, "Think it needs more vinegar?"

"No." Mori licked his lips. "Salt?"

"Who's Namahage?" Arai asked, stopping at the table to sample a glazed chestnut. "Mmm, these are so good."  
"Sit down, get a plate," Mori urged.

"He's one of the visiting New Year gods," Onuma said. "Actually, I think it was my neighbor's uncle, dressed up like a demon. Man was the size of an ox."

"In a minute. I was going to set those other stones out--for the barrel and the bath, and all," Arai told Mori, grabbing another chestnut. To Onuma, he asked, "So what does he do?"

"Terrifies children into behaving?" Onuma laughed. "That's all I knew."  
"He cleanses souls," Mori provided. "Let me get that extra jar, for Onuma to take."

"Nah, I got it. You wanted the brown one, with the straw handle, right?"

"It's in the root cellar. I'll come give you a hand." Mori tried to rise, but Arai waved him off.  
"I know where it's at, don't worry about it. It won't take two seconds." And before Mori could protest, he'd grabbed a rice ball from the table, and a lamp, and headed out.

"Salt, huh?" Onuma asked, before following Mori's worried gaze to the cottage door.  
"I should go help." Mori listened to Arai's boots descending the porch steps, thinking of all the ways a person could get hurt wandering in the dark. Onuma sighed and set down his spoon.

"Actually, I've been hoping for a chance to ask you something."  
Mori looked back at him. "What?"

"I was in town this morning, picking some things up. And somebody asked me to pass a letter on to you. If you want, I'll get it now. But after what I saw tonight...." Onuma's former cheer had slipped away, overtaken by a look that was conflicted and, to Mori's curiosity, frustrated.

"I dunno. I'm half of a mind to say I lost the damned letter, and forgot all about it. But I know you're a straight dealer, and I don't want to get you or the kid in any trouble, down there."

"Is it bad news?" Mori asked.

"From where I'm standing? I'd say so. But from Arai-san's point of view, I imagine it's pretty good." The hard crease between Onuma's brows deepened, and he thumped his fist on his knee, before looking up at Mori. "I don't want to bring bad news at a time like this. I don't want to ruin your night, or the kid's. But that's all I can say. It's up to you."

Mori could easily predict the topic of Arai-san's letter, just from Onuma's reluctance to go into it. And for a moment he teetered, between fatalistic despair, and an odd swelling of gratitude for his neighbor's loyalty. 

"I have a lot to thank you for," he told Onuma. Feeling a twinge of guilt as he spoke, for having declared Arai his close friend, before acknowledging the man who'd helped him for years. Of course, what he felt for Arai was something of an entirely different magnitude. But he'd been remiss in not having admitted Onuma's friendship first, even just to himself.

"I'm lucky to have you for my neighbor. And for a friend," he stated, figuring better late than never. Onuma, in return, gave him one of those sharp searching looks that it was impossible to hide anything from.

Sensing time was running short, and Arai would be back any moment, Mori bowed to the inevitable. "I'll take the letter. But I'll read it tomorrow."

"You sure? You're not supposed to start the year off with bad news, you know."

Briefly, Mori wavered. For the most part, he adhered to the belief that pain was best faced promptly. Like ripping off a bandage, all at once. The sooner it was done, the sooner one could recover.

But he'd faced quite enough this evening already. And before Arai had gone out, and Onuma had broached the somber subject, Mori was actually on the verge of enjoying something he hadn't known in too long. Festivity, and camaraderie, and the closeness of those he might as well consider family. 

Furthermore, while he'd known the feeling well enough to recognize it, he realized this was yet another of those things that Arai had never known. And at least for tonight, Mori couldn't countenance taking that away from him, before he'd had a chance to properly experience it.

"Tomorrow," he decided. "If I read it, I'll have to tell him. And I'd rather not trouble him tonight."

Onuma's eyes were frank and unwavering, and Mori had to draw considerably on his inner convictions, in order to keep from looking away. To start seeking loopholes, or some way out of the inevitable.

"You know, Morinozuka. Considering what you just went through, I think plenty of people would agree you have more claim to that interesting young fellow, than anybody down in the village."

Mori shook his head. This was no time to start thinking that way. The temptation alone was dangerous. "I don't have a claim on anyone. And he isn't property. His future belongs to him."

"And if your future is together?" Onuma asked frankly. 

Even despite what had happened, and how it altered things between them--he was seeing the changes already--Mori's view of right and wrong, and his respect for Arai's freedom, could not be altered. Now matter how much it complicated his life. 

Taking a deep breath, he attempted to explain the painful truth, as well as he could.

"I chose to live here, because I wanted somewhere quiet. I saw enough of the world on my way here. All he's seen is the village. He doesn't remember his life before, at all." He trailed off a moment, recalling that crushing darkness and loss that had overtaken him before he'd collapsed at the pool. 

It was Arai's loss he'd felt. Not just a dream, Mori realized, but Arai's last memory, buried so deeply that only a nightmare could drag it up again.

"I think--." Mori spoke carefully, knowing he could only speculate, though the conclusion rang terribly true. "I think he lost everything--permanently--before those people found him in the woods. And I can't make up for that. He needs to build his life again. He needs to see the world, and experience what everyone else does. He can't get that, hiding up here with me."

Onuma listened, weighing Mori's words gravely. "If you don't mind my asking, what makes you think it's permanent?"

"That rope. I always thought a binding was to keep things closed. But it can put things together, too."  
For a second, Onuma looked intrigued. "So....you know what he knows, now?"

"I think I know something he can't remember," Mori answered. "And it fits with something Mizuko-chan said about him. She said he went to place that things don't come back from."

"But he did come back."  
"She said he didn't come back the same."

"Mizuko-chan seems to take quite an interest in him," Onuma said. "I wonder why that is."  
"It's Mizuko-chan," Mori shrugged. "We'll probably never know."

Onuma lifted a brow, and the corner of his mouth quirked up. It wasn't his characteristic mischievous expression, though. There was too much hidden in the look, that Mori couldn't quite identify.

"Well. It's your decision. But I have to say, if I looked at somebody the way you two look at each other...." He gave a small sigh and shook his head. "I don't believe I could surrender them so gracefully."

Like a bandage, Mori thought. Tomorrow, he'd rip it off fast as possible, and be done with it. It would hurt ferociously, there was no way around that. But until the time came, it was best not to dread it, or think on it at all. For Arai, he would put it aside tonight.

"I don't like asking favors, when you've done so much already," he told Onuma. "But if it isn't too much. I'd like him to have good memories of tonight. I'd like him to remember he has friends. In case later on...." 

He didn't want to complete the thought. He didn't want to think that later on, things might be harder for Arai. That he might not find himself among friends, wherever he went next.

Luckily, Onuma caught what he couldn't say. "That sounds like a worthy cause, to me." And then he smiled. "Of course a fine bottle of wine never goes amiss, when the cause is worthy."

"I would also," Mori replied, by way of warning, "like to dedicate the hothouse at sunrise."  
Onuma laughed, and raised his hands in a conciliatory gesture. "Nothing saying you have to drink the whole bottle. I'll take it easy on the kid, too."

At the sound of boots on the porch again, he nodded briskly and rose. "You still got those little cups in the pantry? I'll bring them out."

"Thank you," said Mori firmly. "For everything."

Onuma waved him off, already on his way to the kitchen. "I like a good cause, my friend. Don't worry about it."

"All right, all sorted out," called Arai, slipping in with an icy draft through the front door . He was cheerful and windblown, and pink-cheeked from the cold, and as Mori watched him tug his coat off, he thought he had never seen anything so captivating. He was struck, all over again, by what a miracle this young man was. And just for a little while, while he still could, he only wanted to enjoy him.

"I put all the jars over by the rain barrel, and put the stones in. You want me to get--"  
"Come and sit," Mori interrupted, waving him over. "Onuma-san is bringing the noodles next."

"But I could--."  
"You could come and enjoy this good food." Mori softened the instruction with a smile. "You're a great help, but you should take a break and celebrate with us."

"He's right," said Onuma, coming in from the kitchen with a big tray of noodles, small cups, sauce bowls, and his wine bottle. "You only get to do this once a year, you know. " He stepped around Arai, who stood rubbing the back of his neck in a hesitant way. "If you don't take the chance to enjoy it, you'll be missing out."

Onuma knelt with the tray, and began doling out drinks and heaps of noodles on their plates, and Arai shuffled over obediently, taking a seat on Mori's left.

"Now the way to really enjoy these noodles is with a good cold beer," Onuma was explaining. "But as much as I like you folks, I'm not hauling kegs of beer hither and yon for you. You know what these noodles are called?" He asked Arai, sliding a plate and a drink cup over to him.

"Soba?" Arai asked, giving the cup a mildly suspicious glance, which he then shared with Mori.

"Toshikoshi soba," Onuma nodded. "Year-bridging noodles." He served the table with the crisp efficiency of a card dealer, doling out food and drink, banter, and sparking grins. "Now traditionally, we'd toast the New Year with this dry stuff that tastes like something you'd take for pneumonia. Probably would cure it, too. But you two are lightweights, and I never liked suffering when I didn't have to."

Instead--." He raised his cup and gestured to the young men to follow suit. "I'm glad to toast your health and good fortune, with something a little better. Morinozuka-san, I'd like to thank you for being an excellent neighbor, and a ridiculously lucky man. Arai-kun, please accept my gratitude for being with us, and restoring my faith in humankind. I hope you both live a hundred years more, and continue having better health and luck than anyone has a right to. Kanpai!"

"Kanpai," Mori echoed dutifully, with Arai following, and they all drank. Onuma tossed his drink back with a practiced flick of the wrist, as did Mori, who would rather simply swallow a strong drink that taste it. Arai's approach was to sip, wrinkle his nose and shudder, before picking up Mori's technique, and downing it all on the second go.

"And now," Mori announced, before Onuma could propose a second round of toasts right away, "we may humbly receive this meal."


	26. Chapter 26

All Mori knew, when he became conscious of his name being called, and his shoulder being gently shaken, was that he just wanted to sleep a little longer.

It was warm, and he felt deliciously relaxed, and his head was much too heavy to bother lifting up. Also, there was a blanket draped over his shoulder, and it smelled of dry autumn leaves and summer pine sap, and the soothing green breath of the forest when it rained. All he wanted was to lay perfectly still, and breathe it in, and slip back under into the cozy sleepy darkness where he'd been.

But there was that voice, talking to him, and fingers stroking through his hair, sending pleasant little chills through him. And he liked that voice, he liked the touch a great deal, but he couldn't be two places at once. Either he could follow the comforting voice and the hands up into awakeness, or he could curl deeper into the blanket, breathe in that wonderful scent and drift away on it.

"You can go back to sleep soon, but you should get up now, or you're going to miss it. It's almost midnight."

The voice had a nice smile, which such was a peculiar thing to think, that it made him smile too. He liked that voice so much, and really, there should be a compromise. He should bring that nice smiling voice down with him, into the blanket. Take it back into his nap with him.

He reached for the hand stroking his hair, to tug it down, where it was cozy and dark, and the voice laughed, and that was okay too, because the laugh was as warm and wonderful as the blanket on his shoulder.

"Takashi, Onuma-san's waiting outside already. We're going to see what those stones do, remember?"

And Mori did remember, sort of. It would probably be important if he were more awake, but where he was right now was bliss, and he didn't want to give it up just yet.

"Takashi." The hand was drawing his hand back up, their fingers twined together, and Mori wanted to see that, and he wanted to see that smile he could hear. So he worked on cracking one eye open, and then the other. It was blurry at first, focusing was almost too much effort, but the owner of the hands and the smile had said he could sleep later, so maybe he should see this in case he couldn't see it another time.

He rolled over, so he was looking up and Arai was looking down, and in that precise place, at that exact moment, the entire world was perfect. In his foggy, thoughtless state, Mori was completely, utterly happy. He understood, without words or reason, nothing but a feeling, like the peal of a great bell that sang all the way through to the marrow of his bones, what he wanted for the entire rest of his life.

"Hi," Arai smiled. 

If Mori woke up, if he started to think, he knew somehow he would spoil this. His head was in Arai's lap. That was Arai's blanket he'd been sleeping under. Couldn't he, just this once, not think any further than that?

"I would've let you sleep. You looked so comfortable. But I thought you'd want to see. Think you can get up for a bit?"

Mori stretched his legs out, and stifled a yawn. He sat up slowly, without letting go of Arai's hand, and he didn't think. They stood up together, went and shuffled their coats on somehow, and then out on the porch, the snow-frosted bite of the night air was sharp in his nose.

The moon was high over the clearing, almost at its zenith, and bigger than Mori could ever recall seeing it. It lit the surrounding sky, and the earth, and the hills in radiant silver, and even though Mori could no longer see the high color in Arai's cheeks, for they were smooth and pale as marble in this light, he could almost pick out every one of Arai's long dark lashes, and the expectant shine in his eyes, and the flash of his teeth in that breathtaking smile.

For the rest of his life afterward, Mori would remember this cusp of the New Year as a vivid, extraordinary dream. He would remember how the icy moonlight flooded over everything, and how they'd drifted, the way you do in dreams, toward the end of the clearing, where Onuma stood with his arms crossed, his breath clouding out in plumes, grinning back at them.

He didn't remember if they talked, just that at some point, everything went very still and very quiet, and then out of that quiet came a roar of flooding water, growing louder as it approached. And soon they saw it, a high tidal wave of brilliant quicksilver and white fire under the moon, foaming and cresting out of the forest and over the orchard, with a force that surely should have splintered every tree, stripped branches from limbs and blown them to matchsticks.

He remembered Arai's grip on his hand, and watching breathlessly, as the wave curled up toward the moon, crested and then broke in a thunderous rain of glittering crystal, the wind and spray blowing out into their faces. He flinched, blinked, but when he opened his eyes, the trees were whole and unharmed, every branch intact and dripping with light.

His ears were still full of that resounding crash, when Arai and Onuma both turned, with identical startled expressions, half laughing and dodging back, as a second rush of water rolled up the slope from the orchard, full as the forest creeks in spring flood, heading directly for the cottage. Mori was dragged back by the elbows, just in time to keep from getting soaked to the knee, stumbling between his companions as they hurried up-slope, to watch the water roiling and rushing up the side of the rain barrel, splitting off to bubble up into the nearby water jugs.

When he felt the rumbling vibration beneath his feet, Mori looked back toward the orchard, anticipating another wave was on its way. But then Arai gasped, and Onuma let out a shout, just as a fat geyser erupted from the well, launching the bucket straight up into the sky, tearing the little pine-shingle roof off the windlass with a splintering crash, and falling back to earth in a squall of frigid, glittering rain. It fell on the cottage, the clearing, the surrounding trees, and Mori's vegetable plot. It splashed down on the hothouse frame, and pelted the heads and coats of the three men who ducked for the cover of the lamplit porch.

They scrambled up the steps with breathless exclamation, dabbing their faces with their coat sleeves, watching the last of the downpour settle to the ground.

"And here I thought I'd be missing the fireworks, this year," said Onuma, with a shivering, nervy laugh. "I'll have to compliment Mizuko-chan, when I see her next."

"Is it always like that, when you move her stones around?" asked Arai, peering wide-eyed, out toward the orchard.  
"Not that I've ever seen," said Onuma. "I know she's prevented floods before. Never saw her cause one on purpose."

"And all that water, going uphill, wasn't that amazing?"  
"I thought we were having an earthquake, before the well blew up."  
"Earthquake? What's that?"

Mori was leaning against the porch post, catching his breath and letting the conversation wash over him, feeling the drag of his bleary exhaustion carrying him off. He knew logically, that what he'd witnessed was miraculous, and that he ought to be as rapt as his companions. But instead he felt as drained as Mizuko-chan's pool must be by now, as though he'd carried that incredible volume of water down the hill himself.

He suspected there was more to his tiredness than that earlier debacle with the stone and the rope could account for. And that perhaps there was more to Mizuko-chan's assignment than simply flooding the orchard with painstakingly purified water. If his earlier theory were correct, the entire property had been purified; the cottage and surrounding land, the hothouse frame, the bathing and drinking water, and even they themselves, in the downpour just now.

But why now, he wondered? Why would Mizuko-chan go to such an effort, when she never had before? What was the purpose of that business with the stone and the rope? And if it had actually been a ritual, as Onuma suggested, why had she singled out Arai to play a predominant part in it?

It was too many questions to sort out, in his current state. His eyes were smarting with fatigue, and he was neglecting his company.

"I wonder if the well is filled up again now," Arai mused. "It was empty, when I checked earlier."  
"I wonder if we still have a bucket," put in Mori, before a yawn snuck up and stretched his head open.

Arai turned to look at him, and gave a small smile. "You're still sleepy." He blinked and then yawned into his sleeve. "Oh--. Now I am too."

"I don't think I woke up all the way," Mori confessed.

"Stop, don't you know that's contagious?" Onuma waved a hand at them.

"It's cold out here, huh? And I'm all wet." Arai tugged his coat about him, shivering.  
"Inside," Mori directed, pushing off from his supporting post with a determined effort "Towels."

Back in the warmth of the front room he yawned some more, hanging up coats as they were handed to him, and then getting muddled when Arai came to help him get his own coat off. 

"Here, you're barely standing...." With an arm around his shoulders, Arai was guiding him back to his bedroom, but when they passed the bath, Mori strayed a bit.

"Have to get towels," he remembered.  
"It's taken care of," Arai assured him. "I'll bring yours in, okay?"  
But there were other details, things he was supposed to do. "Onuma needs a bed. I should--"  
"We already worked it out." Arai was pushing him gently, but inexorably, off into the next room, and Mori had to direct all his effort toward keeping his eyes open, and not falling over.

Then he was at his bed, and it was okay to fall over. It didn't even matter that the bed was cold and he was fully dressed, or that his hair was wet, or the quilt didn't smell as nice as the one before. Though something else did matter, one of those details, more important than towels or beds, chafing at his torpid conscience.

"Sorry I dozed off after dinner," he tried to say, though the words felt mumbly to him. "Wanted you to have a good time. But I--." The rest was lost in a yawn, and the waves of sleep rising up to tug him under once again.

He could still hear, though. He could hear Arai smiling, and saying, "Don't be sorry. I'm so lucky I got to be here tonight. I won't ever forget what you shared with me."

He slipped into a doze then, barely roused when a towel came dabbing at his head. Some unknown amount of time later, he caught the snap of quilts being shaken out, and the sounds of someone else burrowing in for sleep, next to him.

It was dark by then, all the lamps were out, but when he felt around outside his own quilt, he was rewarded by a familiar hand slipping into his. And as he sank back down into real, deep sleep this time, he heard, "Good night, Takashi. Happy New Year," whispered into the darkness, reassuringly close by.


	27. Chapter 27

For all the marvel and upheaval that had ushered the new year in, Mori's outlook turned bleak, once he read Arai-san's letter, kindly requesting the return of his charge at the middle of the next month.

To his great credit, Arai took the news with a better show of enthusiasm than Mori was capable of maintaining. The letter had mentioned a wealthy tenant was returning to one of the old estates north of the village, and his agent was hiring house staff and groundskeepers to prepare the place for occupancy. The majority of the workers would be temporary, but Arai-san mentioned that those who did best could be hired on the rest of the year, if not longer.

Mori had no doubt that Arai would be chosen to stay on. It was all too obvious by now that his affinity for growing things went beyond the usual talent of a gardener. Not two weeks since the young man had begun tending it again, the anemone in the windowsill was sprouting new buds. The parsley and onions were filling their new, bigger pots, and New Year's morning, Onuma pulled Mori into the kitchen, asking him to explain what he was feeding his tomato plant, that it was producing fruit well out of season.

Only a fool, or someone determined not to see, could miss the signs right in front of him. The young man had raised a stone twice his weight from the bottom of a deep pool, literally out of the goodness of his heart. Mori had been there. He had felt it. And going further back, he had seen Iwasaki-san's lemon tree, and that roomful of healthy blooming plants.

Every spare moment, the old woman had told him, Arai had been in that room. He was also in the room, the night Onuma miraculously recovered from his illness. Maybe the lemon tea had helped, but once Mori identified the pattern, he was hard put to call it a mere coincidence.

Arai had something. That much was certain. Call it a talent, call it a special quality, but even Mizuko-chan had taken particular notice of it. He had more than other people, she had said. And whatever it was--if there was even a word to encompass it--it was visible to her, and for a time, had been incredibly tangible to Mori on New Year's eve.

And now Arai had a chance to make perfect use of it, in this estate job. Mori couldn't have dreamed a better opportunity, if he'd tried.

When had he become so selfish, he wondered, that this perfect chance should make him miserable? He took some small reassurance in learning that Arai was reluctant to leave him behind, and it made him even more ashamed of himself.

Arai was a better person than him. That's all there was to it. In the day following the mishap with Mizuko-chan's rope, he had seemed more resolute, more sure of himself. Rather than threatening his security, the crisis seemed to have roused Arai's fortitude, making it an enduring fixture, to all appearances.

Even as Mori, ironically, was finding his own fortitude a difficult thing to keep sight of.

It was late afternoon, when he read Arai-san's letter. Onuma had departed for home, and Mori and Arai sat on the porch, in their coats, sipping tea and watching the sharp, chilly day drawing to an end.

"This is your choice," he had made sure to point out, after reading the letter aloud. "If you don't want to go back, I can always give you a place here." 

Arai looked at him with less abashed innocence, and more intimate frankness than he'd shown only a few days ago. And when he answered Mori, there was honest determination there.

"Arai-san always tried hard, to find places I could work. Even when it didn't go well, when I messed things up, he kept trying for me. And you said people want me to do well. I think I have to do this job. I want to do it. It's the only way I can thank the people who helped me."

He was right. Of course he was right. But moral comfort was not what Mori needed just then. It wasn't enough to soothe this brokenness in the middle of him, this feeling that he'd boldly ripped the bandage off his wound, only to discover it was far more raw and deep than he'd realized.

This was what came of wishing. This was the suffering he'd always been warned about; when a person invested themselves in desire, and saw their hopes deferred, and those they loved disappear to far-off places. 

Losing the fox should have taught him something. But instead, it had only made him more susceptible. It only made him apt to say terrible things, which he had no business confessing.

"I'll miss you." Not his help, not only his company. None of those safe, impartial qualifiers that could help them both pretend Mori wasn't helplessly attached.

By his look of stricken sympathy, Arai understood what was going unsaid. "If you....needed me to stay," he offered carefully.

Mori bit his lip hard, and stared at his white-balled knuckles, lined up atop his knees. Knowing if he let himself answer that, he might never respect himself again.

"It's not like going away forever," Arai tried again. "And I would come back to visit. If you wanted me to."

"You will always be welcome here. Anytime."

After that, they sat in silence for awhile. Listening to the wind shift the pine tops, watching the play of shadows over the clearing, from the high thin clouds crossing the sun. From time to time, Mori glanced sidelong at Arai, sitting on the top step, elbows folded across his knees. His fingers twisted idly at a loose black thread on his coat cuff, but his gaze was somewhere far off.

Attachment was a strange and painful thing, Mori decided. It was the reason he was tempted--against all logic--to trim that little black thread from Arai's coat, and tuck it away somewhere safe. It was the reason his mouth felt dry, every time he glimpsed the pure, clean line of Arai's profile. It was the reason he didn't really want to take that wayward thread from Arai's cuff, but wanted to leave it just so, to keep Arai just as he was in this moment, paint every detail of him into memory.

It wasn't long before Mori had given up on surreptitious glances, and simply leaned back against the porch post, and watched Arai's quiet pensive expression until it narrowed, sharpened in the consideration of something particular. A question was coming, Mori guessed.

"You--last night, before you got hurt. You wanted something. It was really important to you."

Mori had known it was only a matter of time before that came up. And while he'd had time to consider the subject, and how he might address it, it hadn't done him much good. He was as much at a loss now, as he had been then.

Lacking any experience to put it into context, Arai may not know what to call Mori's secret, but he had seen it, they had shared it, and now Mori found himself in the impossible position of being unable to lie, or tell the entire truth.

_You._ Such a small simple word, and it sat on Mori's tongue like an anvil.

He still wanted Arai. With a jealous intensity that sucked his breath away, if he allowed himself more than a second to dwell on it. But Arai had a purpose now; he had an unparalleled opportunity to find the place he'd been searching for. And Mori would sooner languish alone forever, than clip Arai's wings before he'd even had the chance to spread them.

"I want you to be happy," he finally answered, swallowing all the rest down. "I don't want you to miss your chances."

Slowly, Arai turned his gaze on Mori, and Mori saw it was not so clear or guileless as it had once been. There was a knowledge of life, and its compromises in the deep hidden color of those eyes now. A knowledge that Mori had carried a very long time, but was only lately learning the true weight of.

He wondered if Arai had caught it from him somehow, the way you caught a cold from someone. Or if Arai had simply caught it from experience. Having his own hopes and seeing them deferred. Enduring his own version of the conflict between duty and desire.

He was briefly tempted to ask. _What do you want?_ In his secret, selfish heart--forgoing duty and obligation--what did Arai wish for?

But it seemed too unfair to ask. Probably cruel, to a person with no name or history, whose living depended entirely on the tolerance of others, and whose sum of worldly possessions could fit in a small cloth bundle.

He was glad he'd held his tongue, when Arai spoke next.

"Arai-san said next month, right? We still have time."  
"That's true," Mori nodded.

"So I can keep learning words, and math lessons."  
"Absolutely."

"We can fix the top of your well. I found a lot of pieces, this morning."  
"That would be helpful."  
"You could teach me how to make those chestnuts, too."

It didn't take any great insight to know that Arai was trying to cheer him up. Remind him that the world wasn't ending tomorrow. That they still had time, and plenty to do together. The effort also reminded Mori that he was immeasurably fortunate. Just to know Arai, and have the blessing of his trust and friendship.

He managed a smile that was one part fondness and two parts aching humility. Knowing he would stand the ache, and the bittersweet sting, and smile for as long as Arai needed him to.  
"I hate to say this, but I think the chestnuts were one of those accidents."

Arai laughed, and just the sound of it was a balm on Mori's hurt. "You always say the best stuff is an accident."  
"A lot of the time it is. Sometimes the best things happen, when you don't expect anything."

Arai nodded, and then tilted his head thoughtfully. "So....if you find something good by accident, can you do it again on purpose?"

Something in his tone, and his expression told Mori that they weren't talking about chestnuts, so much as they were talking about grace. Or themselves. Or maybe just life, and the way it dropped extraordinary gifts on people out of the blue sometimes.

"I think it's always worth trying," he answered.

Turning back to the clearing, Arai drew in a breath, and looked up toward the sky; the drifting patchwork of white and brilliant blue above the swaying treetops. He smiled.

"Good. I'd like to try, then."

**

They found nearly all the pieces of the windlass roof, scattered across the clearing, but discovered they lacked the materials to make it good as new. So Mori devised a temporary cover, with the wood left over from the hothouse frame, and decided he'd fix the roof properly when he started the next phase of the hothouse construction, in spring.

**

The remainder of the chestnut stash went to several experiments, as Mori sought to recreate what he'd done for Osechi. The best attempt though, turned out to be Arai's version of chestnuts and sweet potatoes. He'd inadvertently roasted the potatoes, leaving them too close to the grill while waiting for the water to boil. He mistook a tangy barbecue sauce for dark sweet syrup, and didn't boil the potatoes quite long enough.

Mori bravely offered to taste it, even as Arai begged him not to.  
"It looks awful." He glanced at the syrup jar Mori had pointed out, and winced. "Maybe you shouldn't eat it."

"Did you taste it?"  
"Just the chestnuts. They taste kinda funny. But the sweet potatoes...." He reached for the bowl, just as Mori dipped a spoon in. "Ah--."

"Can't hurt to try it," said Mori, and popped the spoon in his mouth, before he could change his mind.

Arai bit his lip and furrowed his brow, looking anxiously to Mori for the verdict.  
"It's bad, isn't it. I'll make some rice, okay? You can't screw up rice."

Mori might have corrected him, saying actually, there were dozens of ways you could screw up rice, and he'd tried all of them. But his mouth was occupied at the moment.

"Sorry I wasted all those sweet potatoes. But maybe, if we mix a lot of rice in, or something--. Um." He broke off as Mori leaned in for another spoonful of the potatoes. "What are you--I mean."

"How did you get that flavor?" Mori asked, after rolling it thoughtfully over his tongue. It wasn't like anything he'd ever tasted before. The tartness of the sauce contrasted with the sweetness of the potatoes, and the smoky hint of roasted potato skin somehow brought it all together. A smoked meat flavor, with a mashed potato texture. It was fascinating.

He looked to the bowl, weighing whether to take a third taste, or simply pull out the plates for dinner, while Arai was hovering, saying, "I don't know. I was trying to follow your directions, but then everything. Kinda went strange."

"It's good."  
"Eh? But it's...,"--Arai waved a hand vaguely-- "....all wrong."

"I like it. You should remember this one." Mori leaned in for a third spoonful, tucked the spoon in his mouth, and then went to the cupboard for the serving dishes.

**

"Red beans, black beans, green beans, rice. Water, bowl, bucket, bath. Wood, stone, earth, fire.....ah, darn. Don't tell me." Arai traced the word on the list with his fingertip. "It's not tree. It's not bed." He shifted on his knees, drummed his fingers on the table, all the while frowning down at the word, as if he could stare some sense into it.

"Do you want to take a break?" Mori finally said. Arai had been drilling himself on the words he knew for more than two hours already, while Mori whittled something that might be a bowl, or might be a cup, but if the wood grain didn't cooperate, might just turn out to be a paperweight.

"No, I know this one." He tapped his temple "It's right there."  
"You want a hint?"

"It's not house. Or window. Those are down here," pointing further down the list. "There's bed. And that one is door."

"It happens outside," Mori offered. "But we haven't seen it in awhile."

Arai couldn't sit still in the face of a learning obstacle. He would fidget, and sigh, flex his knuckles, and hunch over on his elbows at the table. He'd twirl his hair around his finger until it stuck up in cowlicks, and chew his thumbnail. He wore himself out with his own doggedness, grappling with learning as a physical effort, trying to wrestle the facts and symbols until they lay down and made sense for him.

"Rice, water, bath, wood, fire, tree," he murmured to himself. He tapped the mystery word several times with his fingernail, and held his breath. Mori half expected to see threads of smoke start rising from his ears any moment, and tried hard to come up with another hint that wouldn't give the word away too easily. The problem was, Arai knew the word very well. He was only missing it now because he was fatigued and thinking too hard, Mori felt.

When he turned his attention back to his carving, which was looking less like a bowl or a cup than an upside-down turtle, actually, he got an idea.

"Can I ask your opinion on something?"  
"Huh?" Arai raised his head, hair sticking up in a brushy corkscrew, where he'd been twisting it. "My opinion?"

Mori set his chunk of wood on the table. "What does this look like, to you?"  
"Um. It's--." Arai set down his pencil and rubbed one eye, before leaning in to peer at the carving. "I dunno. It's kinda." He cocked his head, squinted a little. "Is it a bowl?"

"I thought it was. Then I thought it might be a cup."  
"Cups are good." He reached for the carving. "Can I--?"  
"Please," Mori gestured for him to take it.

Arai scooted around and crossed his legs under the table, then dragged the lamp closer, so he could examine the piece closely.

Mori had been carving bowls, cups, and chopsticks out of scrap wood ever since his first winter in the cottage. Mainly because it kept his hands occupied, they were devilishly easy to make, and were infinitely useful. Anytime he felt he had too many of them laying around, he'd pick the best looking ones and take them down to the village market and give them for trade, or as gifts, or just leave them sitting on a market table, figuring someone would find a use for them.

He also did it because he enjoyed the simple repetitive task of carving and whittling. It was as good as meditation, in its way, and he liked seeing the shape of a piece gradually emerge over the course of a week or so, a few hours a night. Every carving was dictated by the character of the wood, its quirks and imperfections, and every piece of wood he worked with had certain unique attributes, to be discovered as he went along.

The piece Arai was looking at now had more than its fair share of those quirks. It seemed there was something other than a cup or a bowl hiding in its shape, but since Mori was neither skilled enough, nor particularly interested in non-utilitarian carving, he was hard pressed to see what this particular piece ought to be. And Arai, though he hadn't latched on to the hobby, when Mori had shown him the basics one evening, did seem to have an eye for interesting shapes, and more importantly, an imagination.

"Huh," said Arai, turning the carving over in his hands. "It's kinda round on the bottom, for a bowl."  
"I keep trying to make it flatter, but it won't work."  
"Oh." Arai traced his fingers over the curved underside. "It's got a knot in the bottom."

"Does it?" Mori leaned forward, wondering how he could've missed that  
"Here, it's right in the middle--." Arai held out the carving so Mori could look at the rounded portion, at the bottom of the curve. But even with the lamp right nearby, all Mori saw was the regular grain of the wood.

"Are you sure? I don't see a knot."  
"It's underneath." Arai tapped his fingers to the spot where Mori was looking. "Feel it."

Mori was on the verge of pointing out that one couldn't feel a knot that wasn't at the surface of the wood, but it occurred to him that Arai could do a few things people weren't normally capable of. So he put his hand out, and laid his fingers to the curve of the wood, willing to give it a try, at least.

"Can you tell now?" Arai asked, but after tracing the curve back and forth, Mori had to shrug and shake his head.  
"I don't feel anything different."

"Here, try this--." Arai laid his fingers over Mori's, cool and calloused, and guided them over the wood. 

Mori wasn't about to mention that it didn't really help, since now all he was aware of was the touch of Arai's hand. If he said that, Arai would stop.

"You feel how it changes, right....there?"   
"Ah--." Right. There was a point to this exercise. Mori frowned, and redoubled his effort to concentrate. 

He focused on the chipped edges left by the chisel, the smooth patch he'd sanded down to check the grain, and then--a bump. It was so slight, he almost missed it. A texture neither chiseled nor smooth, but ever so slightly frayed, breaking the grain of the wood.

"Oh. You mean this?" He traced the spot again, no bigger than an apple seed, amazed. "How did you notice that?"  
"What? It's just there," Arai grinned.  
Mori kept his fingers where they were, in the scheming hope that Arai wouldn't move his away. "You sure you're not interested in carving? I think you'd be good at it."

"Hm. Maybe someday." He glanced down at his papers and pencil. "It takes a lot of time." Then he smiled, and looked back up at Mori. "I like watching you do it though. You really enjoy it."

Arai couldn't know how he tested Mori's self control, with that fond, intimate smile of his. It was all Mori could do, not to lean across the table, and kiss him right there. For a few seconds, he actually imagined doing it, how simple it would be, to just reach forward, comb down that wayward twist of hair with his fingers, before tilting Arai's chin up, and--

"Oh." Arai blinked, and looked down at his paper suddenly. "Rain. That's what it was. Good grief, how did I forget that?"

Mori shook himself out of his errant daydream, to find Arai handing back the carving and picking up his pencil again. He tried to dismiss the bereft little twinge under his breastbone, reminding himself he had no business feeling that way, and anyway he deserved it, for daydreaming.

"Sometimes it helps," he said faintly, "to think about something else for awhile. I think I'm going to make some tea now." And maybe soak his head in the sink, while he was at it.


	28. Chapter 28

If left to his own devices, Arai would probably study himself blind. With a minimal workload around the cottage and property, and not much else to occupy himself with, he spent nearly all his day on handwriting, math exercises, and learning words. Mori often had to coax him into taking breaks, and cite the rules of etiquette, to keep him from working through meals.

Beyond that, however, Mori wouldn't interfere. He understood that Arai's near-desperate drive to learn was born partly out of necessity, and partly out of having had the opportunity and the teaching denied to him, up to now. He was insatiably hungry to learn, and committed to the effort, and with those two qualities it was little wonder he made steady strides toward proficiency.

It wasn't that his talents were conspicuously great; he was apt to write a word a hundred times one day and forget it the next, and doing sums with numbers higher than ten (as high he could count on his fingers) taxed him greatly. But he never conceded defeat. He would write the forgotten word two hundred times, and pick over twenty-three minus sixteen, and thirty-eight plus sixty-four (oftentimes using the jar of dried beans in the pantry for a counting aid), until he got the right answer.

Of course, not giving up on a problem didn't mean he wasn't often frustrated. Sometimes Mori would look up from a book, or a piece of whittling, or mending, to see Arai gnawing his lip or his thumbnail, with a deep vertical crease between his brows, and a fixed, harried stare that meant a growl of exasperation was on the way. And he would remember what Arai had told him months ago, about his fear that not knowing the name of something meant it might disappear.

He suspected that on some level, that fear still motivated Arai more than anything else. And it seemed to him that the only way to overcome it, was for Arai to see for himself that what he feared wouldn't actually come to pass. Which was why Mori was judicious about when he helped, when he intervened to give Arai's faculties a rest, and when he simply left the young man to battle his frustration on his own.

Mori had been raised on the philosophy that a certain amount of annoyance and vexation was healthy. He'd learned early on, that a hard-won achievement was far more valuable in the end, than any lesser effort. So on the day Arai finally vented his frustration, throwing his pencil across the room with a beleaguered yell that sounded like he'd bottled it up for months, Mori glanced over the top of his book in surprise, and then hid his smile behind the pages.

"Gaaah, this is impossible!"  
"Verbs?" Mori quietly inquired.

"Gaah!" Arai answered. "I can't remember them if they're always different. How come they have to be different?"  
"Grammar is hard. Everyone has trouble with it. I still forget conjugations sometimes."

Arai sighed heavily, and glared at his paper, fingers twitching like he wanted to tear it to shreds. Mori set aside his book, and rose.  
"I think it's going to freeze tonight. Hotpot sound good for dinner?"

"Hnn? Oh, sure."  
"You mind chopping some extra firewood? We'll probably want to stay inside tomorrow."  
"Yeah. Okay." With a last aggrieved look at his verbs, Arai stood and stalked off to grab his coat.

"Be careful with the axe," Mori mentioned, on his way into the kitchen. "Don't hurt yourself." He didn't think Arai was that upset, but it wouldn't hurt to remind him.

He fully expected the firewood to show up in small pieces, and was not disappointed. Arai was gone for half an hour, and returned with a full basket of splintered blocks, face red and hair damp with exertion. But he was unhurt, and a good deal calmer.

"When I was growing up, some of the monks used to tell me that anger clouds the mind, whenever I got mad." He offered Arai a cup of water, and smiled. "I thought it was condescending."

"When did you ever get mad?" asked Arai, catching his breath, and sipping at his water.  
"Over lessons. And chores. And rules." Mori shrugged. "The usual things."

Arai looked thoughtfully at him. "Was that why you had to leave? Because you got mad?"  
Mori was taken aback by the unexpected question, and for a long moment, had to cast about for a reasonable answer.

"No," he finally said. "Someone accused me of doing something very wrong. And I couldn't prove that I didn't."

"Oh--." Arai's eyes widened in sympathy. "That's terrible. How could anybody think that?"  
"It was complicated," was all Mori could say. And to avoid any further pursuit of the subject--because maybe someday he'd share the story with Arai, but now wasn't that time--he said, "Anyway. Sometimes if you're mad, it's a good idea to walk away."

"You mean instead of yelling and throwing stuff?" Arai looked off to where his pencil had landed, and twisted his mouth ruefully. "That was pretty dumb."

"If you think you'll do something you'll regret, it's better to get away. Take a walk. Throw rocks at the ground."  
Arai chuckled. "Chop firewood."

"Why not? Long as it isn't destructive. And doesn't bother anyone."

On that point, Arai nodded, with a sober look down at his hands, folded around his cup. "It's bad, if you hurt people, because you're angry about something. Some people do that. But it's wrong."

Mori caught his breath and closed his eyes briefly, telling himself he would not ask, and should not know. He couldn't be trusted with any knowledge of Arai's experience in that regard. It would only lead to an anger he had very little chance of walking away from, and make him a hypocrite.

"That's almost the worst thing of all," he agreed.

**

At the end of last summer, during those bleak lifeless days without the fox, when just making it out of bed was a notable achievement for Mori, he had gone to the trouble of setting aside some pear seeds. He'd had no particular purpose in mind for them at the time; there was hardly any purpose to anything he did back then. It was something to do besides lay in bed staring at the wall, or sit slumped on the porch staring at nothing, that was all.

He'd planted a few of those seeds in a window box, which he kept down in the root cellar until the rainy season was past, watering them periodically, until cold winter had come to stay. Then he moved the box up to the side of the cottage, and let the snowfall take care of the watering.

He wasn't sure what he'd do with them, once they germinated. But since that wouldn't happen until late April or May, Mori had reckoned there was plenty of time to decide.

Sometime in the first week of January, when he saw that once again he had more parsley and onions than he knew what to do with, and the tomatoes were growing at an ambitious rate, Mori got to thinking about those pear seeds. It occurred to him that they might make for an experiment.

It was an established fact, in his mind at least, that Arai could make things grow. Give him a sprouted plant to look after, and it would flourish, regardless of season or available sunlight. What Mori was curious about though, was whether a seed might sprout out of season, with the same sort of attention. Hito-sama had once mentioned that pear seeds needed a few months of exposure to cold in order to germinate, and then in warm spring temperatures, they would grow.

So a week after New Years, Mori brought the window box indoors, and asked Arai if he would mind keeping it next to the anemone, in the windowsill by his bed.

Arai had first aimed a baffled look at him, and then laughed that it was Mori's windowsill, he could do whatever he wanted with it.  
"I don't want it to be in your way," Mori answered, though he actually sort of did. Arai's gift appeared to work by proximity, after all, and it only stood to reason that keeping the seeds close by him, would encourage the best results.

"What's it for?" Arai had asked, and Mori told him about the pear seeds buried in the soil.  
"I haven't tried growing a tree from seeds before," he said. "It might not work, but I thought I'd see what happened."

He debated with himself on a regular basis, whether he should mention his conclusions about Arai. On the one hand, it seemed the fair and upfront thing to do. And he'd gotten in trouble before, about keeping his observations to himself.

On the other hand, Arai was self-conscious enough as it was about his differences from others. And knowing that one had a rare, inexplicable talent was not necessarily a good thing, as Mori could personally attest. He'd never asked for the ability to see ghosts when nobody else could; no one had ever asked for his consent on the matter, and while it had turned out to have some benefits, it had taken most of his life so far before he was able to see them as such.

As it was, Arai seemed to take it for granted that things grew under his care. As far as he was concerned, it was perfectly natural, and who was Mori to go pointing out that it wasn't, necessarily? Especially when he could offer absolutely no clue as to why flowers and vegetables and fruits seemed to thrive in Arai's company.

Until he could gather some logical explanation, and more importantly some demonstrable reassurance that Arai's difference was nothing for him to worry about, Mori felt it would be kindest not to add to Arai's anxieties about himself, or cast vague shadows of doubt on something that Arai took such genuine, unreserved pleasure in.

Had he understood the workings of Arai's gift; had he been aware of its drawbacks at that time, Mori most certainly would've brought it up for discussion, urging the young man to be prudent, and mindful of his ability. Had he fully grasped what Mizuko-chan had already hinted at--that Arai's talent stemmed from a finite source, that there were consequences for overtaxing it--perhaps he could have averted the things which eventually came to pass.

Perhaps. Fate was a vastly difficult thing to change, Mori would learn. There were some things which simply had to run their course, no matter how much persistence, or willpower, or knowledge one applied to them. And in the case of Arai's fate (a good bit more complicated than most people's, they would one day find out), this was especially true.

But he didn't know better, back then. He gave Arai the window box of pear seeds, and they went on about their comfortable routine. Sometimes he'd catch sight of the anemone blossoms behind Arai's bed screen, or start cutting a fresh tomato for dinner, and he'd think that maybe a more objective person could unravel this mystery, of the nameless boy found in the woods, who could coax plants to abundant life, charm spirits and stones (and solitary hermits) to aid him.

He would ponder the cost of such a gift, because everything had an origin somewhere, and there wasn't anything in the world that existed unconditionally. If Arai had lost his name and his whole history in a place things didn't return from, had he gained something extra in the process? Or was his ability all that was left, of what he used to be?

And if that were the case, what manner of person had he been, prior to the calamity that went on haunting his forgotten nightmares?

Mori would wonder these things, and then he'd see Arai shoving up his sleeves to tackle the dinner dishes, counting beans under his breath as he practiced his sums, or patiently cleaning the dirt and snow off his boots after every outing.

He'd remember the evening Arai had grabbed his hand, urging him to be quiet and follow, as he drew Mori around the side of the cottage, to spy on the white-coated rabbit inspecting the vegetable patch. He would watch nearly every afternoon, as Arai faithfully marched off to the orchard to visit the old pear tree in the middle, even on gray days when the wind cut like razor wire, and wet sleet pelted the clearing half-heartedly.

At those times, Mori never reflected on origins, abilities, fate, or consequences. He didn't consider what Arai might become or wonder who he could have been; all he could see was the remarkable person right in front of him. The scope of his world was bounded by the space Arai occupied, time was measured by how they spent it together. Like a kingdom slumbering under a fairytale enchantment, Mori would've been perfectly content if time had simply stopped for them. If each day went on, just like the last, and nothing ever intruded.

But Mori's life was not so charmed. And no matter how he tried to hold on to every day, they all passed, and the spell he imagined was soon drawing to an end.

**

Late in the day, in the first week of February, Mori was sweeping the front room of the cottage while Arai was off in the orchard, and chanced to take a peek behind Arai's bed screen. He saw Arai's bed and blankets, neatly folded at one end, with the cloth bundle containing his spare clothes and his box of treasures on top. He saw the clean floor, the spotless window, the healthy blooms on the anemone, and then Mori saw that he had quite possibly made an unfortunate mistake.

Three of the four pear seeds in the window box had sprouted. Bright green shoots, poking up from the soil, at least a good two months before it should've been possible, in this climate. One of them was already the length of his little finger.

His guess had proven true. The experiment had worked. But Mori realized he had given no thought at all, to what would happen afterward. All the plants Arai had cared for on his first long visit had gone dormant, not long after he'd left. The anemone had dropped its petals, most of the leaves on the tomato vine had curled and fallen off. Half the parsley had yellowed and withered for want of adequate sunlight, and the onions had simply stopped sprouting.

Mori had given the pear seeds to Arai to see if they'd grow, and they surely had. But what would become of them, after Arai left? Deprived of sufficient sun to sustain their growth, how could they make it to spring?

"Just because you can do something, doesn't mean you ought to," one of Mori's teachers used to say. It was a shame he hadn't thought of that earlier.

Maybe it was a delusion of his own impending unhappiness--something Mori tried diligently not to anticipate--but there was something terribly poignant to him, in the sight of those tiny green shoots, bravely peeking up to meet the world, not realizing it was much too early for them.

He knelt down by the window, setting his broom across his lap, and sighed. "What are we going to do without him?" Outside, it was cold earth and the broken stalks of frostbitten grass, and clumps of frozen snow in the shade. This was the world he would soon have to face alone.

"I guess we just try, somehow."


	29. Chapter 29

He walked down the wide main street of the village in the early evening, drawn by the laughing, rollicking cry of an old familiar harvest song. He couldn't place the song exactly; there were too many voices crowding the words in this tipsy off-key rendition. But the tune and the rhythm now and then prodded at a long-forgotten door in Mori's memory, and he felt sure once he got closer, he'd be able to place it.

The street was lined with carnival stalls lit by lanterns, in all sizes and colors, and it seemed the whole populace was here. Visiting the stalls, calling to friends; everyone turned out in traditional festival garb; laughter and smiles wherever he looked.

Sometimes the singing sounded far off, sometimes it seemed just a few buildings down the street. Mori stepped through the crowd slowly, exchanging nods and greetings once in awhile, with people he vaguely recalled knowing, keeping one ear tuned to the next verse of the song.

_"....up goes the basket, (mumble mumble mumble) hi-hi-yo...  
(mumble mumble) down (mumble mumble mumble) rows, ho-hi-yo."_

He ducked under lanterns and the tented roofs of market stalls, politely slipping around a group standing in a circle, playing a game of catch with several bean bags. Back and forth he crossed , weaving his way through the crowds, and as he went along, he found he had to step wider and wider to cross the deep stream running right down the middle of the street.

_"....(mumble mumble) hill, there's an old man, (mumble mumble) hi-ho...  
he hid the (mumble mumble) drowned in the (mumble mumble mumble), yo-hi-ho."_

There were lanterns in the stream too, flickering candles floating slowly on quaint little rafts made from bare pine branches. When he noticed this, Mori paused respectfully at the side of the stream, watching the meandering lights that guided visiting ancestors and family spirits back to the next world.

So was this the village's Obon festival, then? Odd that he hadn't known that already.

"Oi, about time you showed up." Mori glanced upstream, and saw Onuma, squatting at the edge of the water, holding a small fish net--the kind used for scooping goldfish at the festival stalls--in his hand.

Like the rest of the villagers, he was dressed in summer yukata (interesting, since Mori had never seen him in anything but trousers and shirts), wearing a blue mask pushed off to one side of his head.

"How long were you waiting?" Mori asked, strolling over next to him.

_"....down goes the basket (mumble mumble mumble), here comes (mumble mumble) hi-yo."_

"Eh, who knows. Time flies in a place like this." Onuma grinned and the rims of his glasses flashed in the lamplight. "So you think I'll have better luck with this?"   
With what? Mori was about to ask, just as Onuma reached in the sleeve of his yukata, and drew out the silver minnow lure he'd been given by the ghost of that old priest, ages ago.

The lure glimmered with a bright pure light while at the same time, Mori noticed, the nearby festival lamps seemed to go dimmer. "I'm not sure you should use that," he answered. "Yamato-sama said it was for when nothing but luck would help."

"You'll have to remind me, then. When it is time. I've forgotten I even have it."

"You mean you _had_ forgotten," Mori corrected him distractedly. Something seemed off about this spot by the stream. Wasn't it a lot brighter before? And where was the crowd going? Looking around, he could still see a few people strolling past the stalls, talking in groups. But they seemed quieter and more distant. And he couldn't hear that song anymore at all.

"Have, had, whatever," Onuma flapped a hand at him. "That's the problem with precious things. You hide them to save them, and then you forget. The world moves on, you move on, and the next thing you know, you've lost everything."

Mori broke off his uneasy inventory of their surroundings, to stare at Onuma. "You realize that doesn't make any sense, right?"

Onuma winked and jerked a thumb back over his shoulder. "Ask the kid. He knows what I'm talking about."

He hadn't even noticed the young man across the stream, just a short distance further up. But as soon as he did, he rose to leave Onuma, looking for a way to cross.  
"Hey," Onuma called. "Watch your back, eh? It's not always civilized around here."

Mori nodded. Things definitely felt different than they did when he'd first shown up. He should make sure Arai would be okay over there.

As he walked upstream, things began changing. The village was fading, like a landscape disappearing into evening fog, and now all he could hear was the sound of rushing water, as the stream swelled and deepened, looking more like the river he recognized, every moment.

In fact, hadn't he been on this part of the river before? Only it wasn't nearly so close to the village, that time.

Confused, Mori turned back to check his distance from Onuma and the festival stalls and lights, but behind him it was just a wide dirt track, leading off into pitch-dark woods. And where he stood now, the road crossed a path running parallel to the river.

Okay. It was nothing to panic over. He was just standing at a crossroads, at the edge of the dark forest, with no idea how he got here. 

But at least he wasn't alone. Looking back across the river, he saw Arai was still there. He too was dressed in traditional clothes, although his layered sleeves, gold and white and crimson, and the graceful drapery of embroidered silk were a good deal more formal than everyone else's yukata. 

For all the striking finery, however (which Mori had to admit looked very pleasing on him), he didn't seem the least bit reluctant about kneeling at the river bank, building a quaint little raft out of pine boughs, by the light of a lantern. One of his lanterns from the cottage, to be exact; Mori was almost certain.

Vaguely recalling some odd superstition about crossroads, Mori turned onto the narrow path, following it up until he was directly across from Arai. He approached a bit hesitantly, unsure if the young man would even see him, but to his great relief, Arai looked up with a bright pleased smile and waved.

"Takashi! Hi! I'm almost done, okay? I'll come over in a minute."

"I think it's getting late," Mori answered. "Let me help you find a place to cross."  
"It's okay, I'll just take the bridge when it's time."

The bridge. Mori frowned at the weathered, ramshackle construction spanning the river, to his left. He'd seen that thing before. And he didn't trust it any more now, than he had then. In fact, he was on the verge of warning Arai about it, when a hollow squeaking noise caught his attention, up where the wide dirt road disappeared into the woods behind him.

He couldn't imagine what it was, but the sound, echoing out of the darkness like that sent a cold shiver of foreboding all through him.

"You should hurry," he called to Arai, his apprehension swiftly rising. "Something's coming."

"It's okay. It'll pass by." Arai stood at the end of the bridge, hands tucked in his sleeves, looking at him gravely. "Just don't watch it, okay?"

"What do you mean?" Mori inched closer to the bridge, wondering if he ought to chance those gapped and splintered planks anyway. "What's coming?"

"It won't hurt you. But you don't want to see it."

Whatever it was, he could hear it getting closer. A rhythmic creaking, like rusted hinges or an old wood rocking chair. It was a sound fit for a crossroads, on a moonless midnight. Or a gallows, empty but for the wind and a heavy swinging rope. The sound was approaching slowly as a funeral procession, but it was definitely coming toward him.

Arai was right. He didn't want to see what was coming. "We should stick together. Let me come over there, until you're ready."

"Sorry. You can't cross this way." Arai's look was sympathetic, but firm. "But if you know my name, then I can come to you."

That creaking noise (wooden wheels and rusted axles, Mori thought) was very close now, and if he were to turn, he would surely see it on the road. "I don't know it," he told Arai. "You....it was taken away." 

"You know another one though. Right?" Mori pictured ink strokes, and carved stones, worn to near-blank smoothness, and wondered if the bitterness in his mouth was really what sacrifice tasted like.

The lantern on the riverbank was flickering, and the air was turning chill and heavy, closing in around him. The night was dark as a crow's wings behind Arai, but the space between them--the bridge, the river, and a few meters of river bank on either side--glowed pale luminescent blue.

Is this what would become of them, he wondered? Was this some warning of their future, or a lesson of the present, or was it something that already happened in the past? He had known a name, once. He remembered tracing it out with his brush, with his fingers, kissing smooth skin between the lines.

But that was a dream, and a deep selfish secret. Lines and curves and strokes to make a cage, to bind this young man forever to Mori's heart. To his life.

He hung his head, ashamed to tell a lie, and ashamed of the truth. "I don't know another name."

It was quiet for a moment between them, and then Arai spoke in a small, sad voice. "Oh. I thought you--. I....guess I'll stay here, then."

And then behind Mori, the dirt crunched and that rolling creaking something squeaked to a halt. He could feel its presence behind him, the cold rolling off of it, curling against the back of his neck, making his scalp prickle and all the hairs on his arms stand on end.

What could be worse, he wondered? Turning to see what loomed behind him, or just standing here, imagining it? All his instincts told him to turn, it was the only way to defend himself. Turn and face it, or just start running now.

"Why shouldn't I cross that bridge?" he asked Arai quietly.

"It won't hold you. You don't belong on this side."  
("Things don't come back from there," someone had told him, once upon a time.)

"What's behind me?"

Arai sighed, and his gaze was dark with sorrow. "Lost things. Things that pass away."  
 _Why are they so cold?_ Mori thought. Why did he feel such a fearsome dread, having them at his back?

Surely his imagination was worse than the....reality, if that was even the right word. And if he didn't look, he would be cursed with never knowing. The things he'd felt but hadn't seen would just go on haunting him.

So summoned his courage, and he turned.  
"Takashi, don't! Please--."

It was a cart, just as he'd guessed. High spoked wheels, and a square bed, all made of ancient wood the color of pitch, of a thousand years of darkness layered upon darkness, and jumbled high with objects. 

There was no driver. No horse or ox in the traces. Just an impossibly balanced pile of random things. Boxes and baskets and bundles of rags. Books and scrolls and bowls and trunks. The more he looked, the more there was to see.

A broken mirror; an unstrung archer's bow, with a deep crack in the bamboo. A silver comb, black with tarnish. A festival mask with the paint peeling off, and a rag doll, arms and legs hanging limp.

Why had the cart stopped here? None of these things were his. Doubtless they had meaning to someone, but not to him--

\--and then he saw it. 

The blaze of orange-white, muted by ghostly blue, but unmistakable, that soft bristling fur he used to stroke, and all at once Mori's blood turned to ice in his veins.

" _\--no,_ " he tried to say, but he couldn't choke it out around the fishhook in his throat. He couldn't turn away. Couldn't close his eyes. Couldn't breathe. He could only stand and look, and feel the snap of his heart, cracking wide open, and the raw grief pouring out, spilling over, drowning him.

It was the pelt, the lifeless coat of the fox, with the brushy tail, eyes slanted shut like it was napping, but the coat was empty, spread out, and oh god who could have done such a thing to this blameless creature?

This was the substance of his worst fears. The one place he had never let his thoughts venture. But now the cruelty and horror and loss wrenched at him, and Mori was defenseless against so much pain.

He looked at the frail bones of the fox's thin white feet, shrunken and still, and his broken heart howled inside him, _Why did you go, it wasn't safe for you, how could you leave and get lost like this, don't you know I begged you, I walked the woods and I prayed and I begged you to come home, oh please why this...._ , and all he could do was shake, and choke on the thick dry sobs tearing out of his chest, the most awful noise; sucking in deep keening moans and hacking them back out in cracked gasps.

His eyes stung, like the twisting hurt in the center of him, and he curled himself up around it, in the darkness, with his knees drawn up to keep himself from breaking open, from falling apart where he stood.

He heard someone calling his name, saying it was okay, but it wasn't okay, nothing would ever be okay. There was yellow lamplight, smeary and wavering, and then strong arms around his shoulders; warmth and the muffled vibration of a voice against his ear, "...just a bad dream, you're all right, I'm here with you."

But that last sight of the fox was too vivid, engraved in pitiless detail on the backs of his eyelids, every time he blinked, and his lungs still clenched and stuttered on every breath. He pressed his forehead to Arai's shoulder, feeling tears splash hot on his clenched fists, burning trails down his cheeks, and the hurt ran from the backs of his eyes to the pit of his gut, a bleeding fissure of heartache.

(Things that were lost. Things that passed away.)

"....everything's fine, Takashi. You're in your bed, in your room, there's nothing bad here." Arai's voice was calm and soft, and he rubbed slow, soothing circles on Mori's back, holding onto him, holding all the crumbled fragments of him together.

Why had he let the fox go? Why? Where had it gotten lost? When had it passed away?

"It was a bad dream, but it's over now. It wasn't real. It didn't really happen."

It felt real to him. It felt like it had happened. How could he hurt this much, over something that wasn't real?

The room and the lamplight gradually solidified around him, as he lifted a shaking hand, to wipe the wet from his eyes, from his cheeks. Then Arai was pressing a wet cloth into his hand, murmuring, "Here. It'll make your eyes feel better," and Mori brought the cloth to his feverish face, feeling wrung-out and too brittle.

"Thanks," he managed, not even trying to sit up on his own yet. Any concern for his dignity was a long way off, and all he wanted was the firm warmth of Arai's shoulder. He didn't want to relinquish it just yet, and fortunately, Arai was patient.

"You're gonna be okay. I'll stay here as long as you want."

Mori dragged in a breath, caught himself on the brink of begging, _Don't ever go. Please don't leave me alone again_ , and forced out a gravelly sigh instead. 

"Sorry I woke you up."

Arai's arms tightened around his shoulders, with a strength Mori hadn't fully appreciated before. "Nothing to be sorry about. Want some water to drink?"

Water sounded good. But he'd have to pull himself together, and sit up to drink it. He wasn't sure he was ready for that. "In a minute."

"Or I could make some tea."  
"No. You don't have to."

"Iwasaki-san made me tea one night, when I had a bad dream. She says she doesn't sleep much anymore, anyway. So we had tea together, in the kitchen. And it was nice. I forgot that I felt scared when I first woke up."

Arai's voice was like the touch of his hands, steady and comforting. Mori found he could close his eyes and listen, and the claws of his nightmare were letting go of him, bit by bit, replaced by the memory of that kindly old woman's kitchen, tidy and bright, everything in its place.

"What kind of tea?" he asked, just so he could listen to Arai talk some more.

"Um. Peppermint, I think? She gets leaves from her herb garden in the summer, and saves them for all kinds of teas. She makes ginger tea, and mint. And raspberry. They're all good. Someday I want to do that. Have a kitchen garden, and make tea."

"You should. I'd like to try your teas." He still hurt inside. He still felt flattened by shock and grief. But there was a small refuge in the thought of mundane things. There was no mourning, no nightmares, in kitchen gardens or tea. They were the epitome of quiet normalcy. The most basic reminders of life and its safe routines.

He breathed. He tried to fit his mind around the thought, _It was a dream. That's all. It didn't really happen._ But he found no conviction there. Maybe he could believe it in the morning. When the sun was up, and the pain had faded, and light came back to the world again.

Oh. But they were leaving in the morning. He was supposed to walk Arai back to the village, tomorrow. To let him go again.

"Would you promise me something?" he asked, as the hopeless ache swelled inside him, threatening to break him all over again.

"Yes," Arai answered, without hesitation, and Mori reached for a fold of his sleeping robe, catching it between his fingers, just for something to hang onto.

"Promise me you'll be careful." He kept his eyes closed, picturing nothing at all. "When you go. Promise you won't disappear."

He heard the quick, quiet inhalation, as Arai's breath caught, and his fingers tightened on Mori's shoulders.

"Is that what you dreamed about?"  
"Not....not quite." He remembered Arai, standing across that bridge, telling him not to look. Asking him if he knew another name. His hurt resignation, when Mori lied to satisfy principles he wasn't even sure he believed in now. "I saw the fox. He was--he wasn't alive. Anymore."

"Oh, Takashi." 

Mori's throat was thick, and his swollen eyes were stinging again, too ready to spill over. But there was no more room in him, to hide his gnawing doubts; no way to keep it all contained, when he could barely keep himself in one piece.  
"Maybe I was wrong. Letting him go. Maybe I should've....made him stay here."

"Did he want to go?"  
"I think he'd wanted to, for awhile. But he didn't. Until I told him it was okay. I said I'd wait for him. Even if it was a long time."

"And you worried about him, ever since then."  
"Yes."

"You miss him. A lot."  
Mori swallowed down the knot in his throat. "All the time."

Arai sat still, holding Mori up, and just breathing. Thinking about it all, Mori supposed.

"Fukuo-san told me one time, that animals from the woods don't like to be cooped up. Sometimes they die, because....I guess because they're sad. They can't be outside, where they belong."

"It's called captivity," Mori sighed. "When you cage them, or lock them up."

"If the fox didn't want to stay, then you would have to lock him up, to keep him."  
"Yes."

"And he wouldn't be happy anymore. It would be....cap--captivity, instead of being friends."  
Mori stared down at the damp cloth in his hand, and tried to imagine himself a captor. Caging the fox, collaring it, just so he could be reassured of its safety. 

He understood then that either way--whether the fox had left, or he had kept it--he would've been miserable. "That's very true." 

"I never thought about it being hard, to be a good person. To do good things for other people. So they can be happy. But it really is sometimes, isn't it."

Sometimes it was the hardest thing of all, Mori felt. Even knowing it was right didn't make it easier. Nothing made it easier.

Except maybe a lot of time passing; enough to forget how much letting go of something could hurt. It was hard to believe he'd ever live to see that day, though.

"I'm really sorry." Arai shifted in, pulling him closer, patting his hair awkwardly and sighing. "I wish I could make it better. But I don't know how."

It could be worse, Mori told himself. He could be sitting here alone, in his cold dark bedroom, with no lamp and no cool rag for his eyes, and no Arai to hold onto him and tell him it was only a bad dream, that everything was okay. Which whether it were strictly true or not, it still meant something, having someone who cared enough to say it.

He had been reconciled for so long, to living alone with nothing but his past and his memories for company. Toiling away in his remote outpost--a peaceful exile, really--with no desires, no wishes, no particular purpose beyond the day's tasks. He'd wanted nothing. Served nothing. Was touched by nothing.

And then Arai had come, tumbling out into that distant clearing, cheerfully lost, with his outsized hand-me-downs and his brilliant smile, and from that very moment, the course of Mori's whole existence had been altered. He had to feel again, to share, to accept, and to help. He wished and he served and he desired and devoted himself, and each day with Arai, he was touched in some unforgettable way.

Maybe it was the fox who had first opened Mori's heart, but Arai had expanded it. Patiently pushing its modest, untested confines wider, a little more every time, until there was room to embrace him whole.

"You've helped," he told Arai. "Having you here makes things better. Knowing you're....my friend. Makes things better."

"But I know I can't--."

Mori pushed back so he could sit up, and look properly into his friend's eyes, because this was important. Arai needed to remember this. "Just be careful, okay? Take care of yourself. If you ever, ever need help, let me know. I'll come down to the village every week. Just get a message to Arai-san, or anyone we both know."

Arai looked startled. "That's a long trip for you. It's too much trouble, for you to come every week."

"I'll come as often as I can. It won't be too much trouble." It was far less trouble than worrying whether Arai was unhappy and friendless, suffering bad dreams and hardships all alone. "And if you should ever need to come here, for any reason at all, please do. Okay?"

He watched several expressions cross those fine features, as Arai made up his mind how to answer. There was hesitancy, concern, sympathy, and finally determination, written straight across his brow, and in the firm set of jaw.

"I don't want to disappear. And I don't want you to worry. I want to come back, and see your hothouse, and see Mizuko-chan again. I want to see what your garden is like when everything's growing. And someday, I want to read that book you showed me. I won't go away forever. I won't stop being friends with you. Not unless you say so."

The long declaration, and all its details, caught Mori a bit off guard. He had to take a moment, to sort it all out.  
"I won't stop being friends, either." He couldn't promise not to worry. But everything else he wanted as much as--if not more than--Arai did.

"Good," nodded Arai, patting his shoulder, as if it were all settled now. "Then it will be okay. You feel better? You think you can sleep?"

Mori could honestly say that he felt better than horrible, at least. Though he wasn't so sure about trying to lie down in the dark, and sleep. The nightmare was over, but it could still be lurking somewhere.

But he shouldn't keep Arai out of bed any longer. He hadn't registered how cold the room was until just now, and kneeling on the floor, in nothing but his sleeping robe, Arai must be freezing.

"You can go back to bed. I'll be fine."

"I can stay here 'til you go back to sleep. If you don't mind."  
"It's too cold," Mori protested gently.

"My bed's all cold now, too." Arai reached forward to brush cool fingers over Mori's forehead, and scrutinized him. "And I know it's hard to sleep, after a bad dream."

For one dizzy second, Mori was so close to saying it. _Then stay here_. His bed wasn't too small for two. The blankets were warm. And oh, how many times had he wanted to fit his arms around Arai, lie down with him and tuck him in, close and safe?

He had reached out without a thought; one moment his hand was in his lap, and the next it was cupping the curve of Arai's cheek, stroking the smooth flawless contour he had studied so many times, in stolen glimpses and hidden stares. When Arai blinked, his lashes brushed Mori's thumb, and his gaze was calm, and so trusting, and it would be the easiest, most natural thing in the world to kiss him. Just a chaste touch of lips, to start with. Slow, soft, so very careful. 

But then he realized, no matter how careful he was, it would be unsupportably selfish; to kiss Arai one night, and then send him off alone. To give him a taste of something that would only confuse him, and then leave him to wonder, for however long, what it might have meant.

This was definitely one of those times when, just because he could do something, didn't mean it was at all wise. Reluctantly, and with an effort, he drew his hand back.

"You can bring your bed in here. I wouldn't mind that."

Arai watched Mori's hand descend to his lap, and if Mori didn't know better, he would think the young man had overheard his conscience, and his troubled decision, and the tiny faint plea that echoed within him, _Someday._

Because when Arai looked up, and met his eyes--clear and far-seeing--it felt like a promise passed between them. Someday. When there was time. When Arai's fate was truly in his own hands, and debts and obligations were no longer an issue.

"Then I will," Arai answered, as though following up on Mori's thoughts, instead of just his words. "I'll be right back, okay?"

He would come back. He wanted to return to Mori. Someday. Until that time, Mori would have to find a way to hold on, somehow.

"I'll be here," he answered.


	30. Chapter 30

In hindsight, Mori would end up grateful for that terrible nightmare disturbing his peace. It left him drained, troubled, beset by a persistent dread, and in a roundabout manner, it most likely saved Arai's life.

The morning Arai was to leave him for the third time wasn't the sort of morning where absolutely everything went wrong, but rather the sort where nothing at all went quite right. Mori awoke alone in his bedroom, tired and sore-eyed, to find that Arai had been up first, and was almost done preparing for his departure. He had already packed his bed and folding screen away for good, leaving the front room a clean, uncomfortably large space, with nothing but the plants in the windowsill (Arai's windowsill, as Mori had long thought of it) to show he'd ever been there.

The sun glared too bright. His tea burnt his tongue. Their last breakfast together felt bizarrely impersonal; making small talk like distant acquaintances in a strange cafe. Mori understood why; that the space between them was too fraught with the separation to come, and that rather than fall into that place, they each held themselves back at a manageable distance. But it was still unsettling, and not at all right.

All morning he was jumpy, distracted every few minutes by the feeling he was forgetting something. He checked his hiking pack repeatedly, double-checked that the windows were closed, and all the fires were thoroughly doused. Asked Arai if he'd remembered his gloves, his toothbrush, his black wool socks. Arai replied each time--too calmly, in Mori's private opinion--that he had.

Out on the porch, his boots felt like they were on the wrong feet. He looked all over for his walking stick, only to have Arai quietly point out that it was still up on the porch, right next to his pack. Mori asked if he'd remembered his extra pencils, and Arai nodded.

Eventually, he was forced to admit that there was nothing else to look for, and nothing he could have left behind that he couldn't conceivably live without for a day. It was time, at last, for them to leave. But every step away from the cottage felt wrong. He had to stiffen his spine and force his feet forward, and fight the continual nagging urge to look back. To stop and check his pack one more time. To look over his shoulder and make absolutely certain there was no smoke rising from the cottage chimney. 

It took nearly half an hour of walking, before Mori's low-grade hysteria eased off any. When they were far enough away that turning back was more trouble than just going forward, and his feet could settle into more of a resigned hike than a forced march. 

And yet still, the vague cramp of foreboding wouldn't leave him entirely. Now and then he'd forget it, listening to his and Arai's boots crunching through the thin snow on the path in tandem. Or fielding Arai's varied questions about the forest (Did squirrels really live inside trees? How did they get enough food to last for the winter? Onuma-san said the fish in the river didn't mind the cold, but what about the frogs and turtles and things?). 

Mori wasn't sure whether these questions were meant to assuage Arai's misgivings, or to distract Mori from his own, but to some extent, they actually did work. At least until Mori looked off into a patch of woods, thinking it seemed awfully dense and dark for late morning, or until a momentary silence fell, and he was unsettled all over again, to find he could hear nothing at all beyond the tramp of their footfalls. No wind in the treetops, no birds, or random rustlings of nature in the underbrush.

It was too dim, too quiet. Too much like the midnight woods from his dream last night, even in places where the sun came drizzling through the forest canopy, dappling the snow in blinding patches. The cold air felt heavy instead of brisk, pressing down on them, and the narrow path felt strangely exposed.

By the time they'd reached the halfway point, Mori was frazzled. He hardly cared anymore that their destination was only the beginning of his long unhappiness. He just wanted out of these woods, and away from whatever ominous invisible cloud was dogging their steps. He knew he was terrible company in this state, and no comfort at all to Arai, but he couldn't for the life of him snap out of it.

He at least had the presence of mind to see when Arai was beginning to tire, and started scouting out the terrain for a cart turnout he remembered, where there was an old stone formation that made for a good resting area.

"Look," he called, when he'd finally spotted it. "You want to take a break up there?"  
A few steps ahead on the path, Arai turned, and glanced toward the direction where Mori was pointing. "Yeah, sure." He detoured over to the turnout, and set his bundle on one of the higher rocks, before unslinging their canteen from his shoulder, and stretching his arms out.

"Ehh, I need to get out walking more. I'm really out of shape." He rolled his shoulders a few times, and then handed the canteen over to Mori, who was shrugging his own pack off. "Thirsty?"  
"Hm, thanks."

Arai climbed up on the rocks--a series of flat boulders, tumbled one atop the other, like badly stacked tables--and brushed aside a dusting of snow to sit back against the topmost one, surveying the area from this new vantage point, while Mori picked a lower spot, and sipped some water.

"Y'know it's weird," Arai remarked after awhile. "It's been clear all morning, but it kinda feels like weather's coming in. A storm, or something."

"You'd be surprised, how fast storms blow up," Mori mentioned. "You don't see them coming over the mountains, but the next thing you know, it's a blizzard. Or a lightning storm." He looked up at the space in the tree canopy above them, and saw only sunny skies. But he didn't think the threat of unstable weather was the source of his unease. To him, it felt like something closer to the ground. Gathering in the dimness of the woods, laying for them.

Stopping to rest hadn't helped his paranoia any, either. But wisdom dictated that rest would keep them alert. Break up the tedious rhythm of hiking, when the mind tended to drift off, lulling the reflexes to sleep as well.

He turned and passed the water back up to Arai, who drank, still taking in the area around him.  
"Oh wow." He peered toward a stand of bare beech trees, a short distance off behind the turnout, wiping his mouth on his shirt cuff. "Look at that plant over there." Mori's view was blocked by the boulders, so he craned around as Arai was slipping off the side of the rock, taking back the water canteen to screw the lid back on.

"I never saw anything like that. It's so bright!" Arai was picking his way back between snow-covered bushes and fallen branches, and even though it was a relatively open area, sunlit, and not terribly far off the forest path, for some indefinable reason, Mori's unease spiked in a cold tingling down his back, and the distinctive prickle of goosebumps over his skin.

He dropped the canteen, and grabbed his walking staff, striding around the piled rocks to catch up with Arai, quickly scanning the surrounding trees, and the cluster of beeches up ahead.

Three steps down the trail of Arai's footprints, Mori's nerves were jolted by a flicker in his peripheral vision, and he instinctively swung up his staff, turning to confront the threat, just as Arai's steps slowed to a halt.

"Hey....Takashi? Does something feel. Weird, to you?"

"Don't move," Mori warned, keeping his eyes on the ghost glaring balefully at him. "Stay right where you are."

"What's going on?" In those few words, Arai's voice went from somewhat apprehensive, to very definitely worried.

"I'm not sure. Just try to be still, okay?" 

The ghost looked hardly anything like she had when he'd first met her. The peacock blue dress was the same; the torn and blood-soaked portion of her skirt, and the flash of steel from the bear trap were just as he remembered. But her brown hair was a straggled mess, her feathered cap was missing, and her eyes were hooded black and utterly chilling.

This was not quite the same well-bred, urbane lady he had encountered, some distance from here. This apparition, he sensed, was the truer version. This was the genuine remnant of that lady's ugly, violent, solitary death.

Would this be where she had actually died, then? He expected as much, from her cold stare; a look he had seen often, in ghosts angry at having their haunting places disturbed. 

"I apologize, if we've trespassed," he said quietly, bowing low enough to be respectful, but still keeping his eyes on the ghost. "You and I have met before, though. I've made some offerings for you."

"Takashi? Are you talking to somebody?" Arai's nerve sounded like it was hanging by a rather thin thread, and Mori knew he'd have to calm him down.

"I'm talking to a ghost," he answered, as reasonably as he could, trying with his voice alone to keep Arai from panicking. "I think we've disturbed her. I need you to be as still and quiet as you can right now, okay?"

"O--okay," came the muted murmur.  
"I'll come to you as soon as I can. Just stay still."

Since the ghost had fixed on him first, he didn't think Arai would be threatened if she was aimed to exercise vengeance. In his experience, vengeful ghosts tended to be particularly single-minded, and unless they were faced with the one who had actually wronged them, they always primarily focused on Mori himself. Most likely, because he could see them.

But he wouldn't take any chances with Arai's safety. He had no salt, nothing to defend them with but a wooden staff (useless, basically), and his wits and words.

"I remember what happened to you," he told the ghost, noting how she stood out against the vaguely bluish shadows surrounding her. There was a definite darkness there, like hanging smoke from an unseen source, interrupting the passage of natural light around her. But at least it wasn't that crackling, luminescent blackness, sucking all light from the vicinity, which always signified the gravest peril. This ghost might attempt to frighten or even injure them, but he didn't think she was bent on killing all who crossed her path. Not yet, anyway.

"If there's some way I can help, please--." He broke off and tensed, as the ghost moved, for the first time. Raising her arm out to the side, her torn and bloodstained glove gripping a soiled, ragged white parasol. Pointing, toward the tracks of Arai's boots in the snow.

But no. Not his footprints....

"Oh, _hell_ ," Mori whispered. He glanced up from the sharp steel teeth, barely peeking up from the snow, not a hand's-breadth off from Arai's right footprint. Looked at Arai himself, standing stock still, ten paces down at the end of the trail he'd made, hands clenched to fists.

Mori took a series of deep breaths, letting them out slowly, until he was absolutely sure his voice wouldn't shake. "Whatever you do, don't move," he called. "There's a steel trap here, under the snow. There might be more."

"A--a trap?"  
Mori looked across the snow that separated them, every dimple and lump hiding a potential deadly threat. There was only one way he could see to get Arai back safely, and they couldn't chance a single misstep.

"I'm going to come to you, and help you get back. Don't move your feet until I say so, all right?"  
"What about the ghost?" Arai answered, in a thin shaky voice.

Mori looked at the woman, who glared back implacably. "She might be here to warn us." To the ghost herself, he added, "I'll help you, too. I promise it."

After a brief debate with himself, he set aside his wooden staff, in case he needed his hands free, and then took the path in cautious steps, refusing to rush, placing his feet exactly in the prints left by Arai's boots, and carefully scanning the ground either side, at every step. Halfway there, he spied a second spark of bright metal in the snow, half a meter or so off, and gritted his teeth as a slow wave of pure anger seeped all through him.

What colossal ignorant cretin had come and set these bear traps, so close to a commonly traveled path? How could they possibly have ignored the danger, or overlooked the fact that anyone could have wandered off from the rest point, just as Arai had done?

Mori could have screamed at such careless, fatal stupidity, but the sight of Arai standing hunched, alone and waiting for help, forced him to check his outrage. To remind himself that anger was for later, when Arai was safe. He could rage and seethe all he wanted later on, but for all he knew, the area was littered with these damned traps, and too much depended on him keeping strictly focused.

And he did remain focused, right up to the point that he stopped at Arai's back, and saw how the young man was trembling where he stood.

"This won't be hard," Mori told him, reaching for his shoulder, feeling the bunched muscles flinch under his hand. "All you have to do is turn around, and step exactly where you did before."

Arai was staring down at his feet, motionless but for the shaking. "Is that one of them?" he whispered.

Mori had to lean around his shoulder to look down. At first, he saw nothing but the gray blanket of snow, shadowed by the nearby trees. And then he made out the curve of sharply angled teeth, reflecting the exact color of the snow, just off the tip of Arai's boot.

One more step, and he would have triggered it. If he hadn't stopped, exactly where he did....

For an instant, Mori's entire consciousness was sucked down to a suffocating pinprick of concentrated panic. He was blind, frozen. Hemmed in by the dread of last night's dream, and all its haunting portents. The dark crossroads and the rolling river; the treacherous bridge he couldn't cross. The empty pelt of the fox; hunted and murdered, stripped and thrown aside.

Just when he thought his reason would snap, with the roaring in his ears, and the world turning dizzy circles around him, Mori's sight blinked wide open and everything leapt into excruciating focus. The vivid blue of the sky overhead, the white and shadow-spotted snow. The faded threads of Arai's black coat, just under his chin, and the knotted, skeletal fingers of the tree branches ahead of them. It was all crystal sharp before his eyes.

Five paces ahead of them, he spotted the flower that had lured Arai over. A splash of orange against the snow it grew from, impossibly. Long thin stalk, spotted curling petals. It was an orange lily; wholly out of place here, completely anomalous.

Unless one knew what it signified.

With his arms now crossed protectively around Arai, Mori looked to the side, and was not at all surprised to see the woman's ghost, standing right nearby, pointing her ruined parasol at the lily.

Revenge. Hatred. The lady had been sketching flowers when she died, he now recalled. And quite clearly she knew their symbolism, having summoned this flower, to relay a message which she herself could not.

Her death had not been an accident, she was telling them. And the presence of these traps now, however many months or years later, was no mere coincidence. Which meant his promise to help the ghost was quite suddenly a great deal more complicated than it had been. 

The lady had been murdered. Perhaps on the very spot where that orange lily stood in the snow. And the person Mori cared for more than anything, had almost died in the same unspeakable way.

Bringing his hands carefully back to Arai's shoulders, Mori felt himself teetering on a perfect balance between hair-trigger alertness and absolute cold fury. His eyes, his thoughts, his reflexes, were all razor edged, and he knew--at least for the moment--exactly what he had to do.

"I know you're afraid right now." He spoke quietly, distinctly, into Arai's ear. "But you will not be hurt. I won't let that happen. Do you understand what we're going to do?"

"My--my knees are stuck," Arai answered, breath coming high and thin in his throat.  
"It's just your body's reaction to fear. It's natural. See if you can bring your front foot back, and I'll help you turn around." 

Never had he been so calm, and so angry at the same time before. If he entertained for an instant, any thought of the fox in his dream, or the last fatal step Arai might have taken, Mori knew he would lose this deadly perfect calm, and all control over his subsequent actions. But he wouldn't do that. He wouldn't scare Arai any worse than he already was. 

"I was gonna to step right there. I was just gonna to walk right into it."

"But you didn't. Something told you to stop, right? You had an instinct."

"That was so close. I can't believe how close that was. I didn't even see--."

"Shh," Mori soothed, gently rubbing Arai's arms and shoulders, trying to talk him down before he hyperventilated. "Try to concentrate on getting back to those rocks. You can worry all you want to, once you're sitting down."

Arai barked out a thin, shrill laugh. "It'll be kinda late, then."

Mori told himself he would stay patient, he would keep his composure, for Arai's sake. And then eventually he would find the person responsible for this, and he would take them apart.  
"C'mon, one foot at a time. I won't let you fall."

"Okay. Okay." Arai hauled in a shallow breath, and dragged his front foot back from the teeth of the trap, slow and stiffly. When his feet were lined up together, he let the breath out.

"Good. Now turn in place, and face me."  
Another held breath, a moment of quivering tension, and then Arai did a tight about-face, wobbling slightly on his weak knees. But Mori's hands kept him from overbalancing, and then he was turned and staring at Mori, face as white as the snow all around them, blinking wide eyes.

"That was the hard part." Mori offered what he hoped was an encouraging smile, even though he didn't feel like smiling, not at all. "Now I'm going to turn around. And you're going to step exactly inside your footprints from before. Just like I do. Think you can do that?"

"I--I dunno." Pained and apprehensive, he took in their surroundings with quick flicking glances. "Something feels really bad, here. I--my stomach feels bad. And my head." Suddenly he reached out to grip Mori's coat, slumping toward him, and Mori caught him under the arms, holding him steady.

A single look past Arai's shoulder, to the ghost standing rigidly nearby, told Mori all he needed to know. It was uncommon for a person to react to the presence of a ghost they couldn't see, but Mori had seen it happen before. Particularly with people who were as open and suggestible, as Arai.

"You didn't see the ghost just now, right?" Mori asked, already knowing the answer.

"Where?"  
"A few steps behind you. That's why you feel bad."

Arai's fingers clenched Mori's coat so tight he caught the skin beneath, and Mori winced. "Is....will she hurt us?

"I doubt it. She wants us to know what happened here. If we get some distance from her, I think you'll feel better."

"It was something horrible, wasn't it. What happened to her." Arai spoke in a broken murmur, head down and quaking in Mori's arms.

"Yes," Mori answered simply. Now that they were in the midst of what he had been dreading all morning, he found the dread itself had melted away. Having a tangible cause to face was something of a relief; knowing he need no longer fear a threat he couldn't see. He need only act, now. Helping Arai was his main priority. He would figure out the rest, afterward.

"I'm going to carry you out," he decided aloud.  
"You what?" Arai stirred to frown up at him. "No, I'm too heavy--."  
"Just back to the path. You can walk all you want, after that."

"But--."

"I'm sorry, but it's not up for discussion," Mori interrupted, knowing the longer they tarried here, the worse Arai would feel, and the more difficult it would be getting out. "I'm going to turn--." He was interrupted, as Arai made a frustrated protesting noise.

"Takashi, I can--."

"I'm going to turn," he repeated, "and you can climb on my back."

There was a tiny flare of opposition in Arai's eyes, staring back at him, but even though he respected the young man's pride, Mori didn't have the time to coax and compromise. He reached up and gently loosened Arai's clutch on his coat, and carefully turned in place, keeping hold of Arai's hands and ducking under, so Arai's arms ended up over his shoulders.

"Grab onto me, and I'll help you get your legs up," he instructed.

For a moment, he thought Arai would balk. The young man stayed still behind him, and huffed out a sigh.  
"You don't have to do this."

That was debatable, but he wasn't going to argue. "I choose to," he answered calmly. "Would you humor me?"

He waited quietly, and then Arai let out another aggravated noise, and gave in, tightening his arms over Mori's shoulders.

"It's my fault," he muttered, next to Mori's ear, as Mori got his elbows up under Arai's knees, to lift him. "You shouldn't have to carry me, just 'cause I screwed up, forgot to be careful."

"I'll let it pass," Mori deadpanned, straightening himself with a grunt of effort. "Just this once, though. Next time, stay away from bear traps and ghosts you can't see."

Negotiating his footing, and Arai's weight on his back, he picked his way just as carefully through their footprints, as he had coming in. For all his unwillingness to be carried, Arai seemed to know to keep perfectly still, and not disrupt their balance, and when they finally reached the tumbled boulders off the forest path, Mori felt him take a deep breath of relief.

"Feeling better now?" he asked, letting Arai's legs down, and finally catching his own breath.

"Yeah. A little," Arai muttered. He wavered on his feet, and then shuffled over and sat on the lowest boulder, head down and elbows crossed over his knees. "M'sorry. I said I didn't want you to worry, and then I made you worry anyway."

"You didn't mean to. You didn't know it was dangerous." At some point, Mori thought, he would like to stop rehearsing this same conversation of misplaced blame and apology between them, every time they were confronted with circumstances beyond their control.

If the circumstances would stop occurring, that would be nice too. It was hard enough to let Arai go free and work out his destiny in some distant unknown place; the fear of things waiting to spring out of nowhere and kill him while he was away just made it exponentially more difficult, from where Mori stood.

"I don't know why I got so scared. I never felt....bad like that before. I was too scared to move, even."

Already, Mori was looking to the next task; collecting one of those traps to take down to the village constable, and hopefully rouse the authorities into action. Also, he needed to mark this spot in case any other hikers came by, to alert them to the nearby peril.

But first, Arai needed some explanation, to ease his mind. And after coming so close to losing him, and then carrying him twenty paces, Mori needed to sit down and rest as well.

He lowered himself to the rock next to Arai, willing his heart to slow down, and trying to think where he should start.

"I never met another person who can see ghosts, like me. But I've known some people who can feel them, like you did. They said they felt sick, or very afraid, for no reason. Some people feel grief or anger, and they don't know why."

Arai went on looking at his knees, distraught and puzzled. "Do you feel that too?"  
"Not as much. But I can see the reason for the feelings. So it doesn't bother me the same way, I guess. I know it's not just me. But other people, they can be badly affected. That's why I wanted us to get away quickly."

"Affected how?"

Mori leaned down on his elbows, like Arai had done. The best example he could think of, was an experience he didn't particularly like remembering. But it was the main reason he had insisted on getting Arai away from the ghost so quickly.

"When I lived at the temple, there was a family, who moved into this house in the neighborhood. It seemed like somebody was always sick in the house. They had fights and arguments you could hear out in the street. Everyone thought it was strange, because they were supposed to be a good family. They had a good reputation."

He remembered the gossip, stares in the city market, word of the doctor being called every other week. He remembered the family's two children, a boy and a girl both close to his age--he was twelve at the time--looking perfectly normal and healthy in that first month or so. But then at some point, they never seemed to leave the house.

"After several months," he went on, "I heard two of the family members were dying. Some sickness the doctor couldn't cure. People said the mother had lost her mind. Didn't recognize anyone. And the father lost his job, because he'd been drinking and fighting at work."

"That's really sad. Terrible luck," Arai shook his head.

"That's what everyone thought," Mori answered. "That it was just bad luck. One of the grandparents died, and the son. We came from the temple to do funeral rites...." He trailed off, recalling what he'd seen in that house. Sickness, madness, hopeless grief. A family destroyed, in the space of a year.

"Did you see a ghost, then?"

"I saw four. No one had remembered who died in that house, a long time ago. But the head priest, when I told him what I saw, he remembered then. And he told the rest of the family they should bring an exorcist, and clean the house."

"Did it help?"

"It helped the house. But the mother never got better. The daughter committed suicide six months later. The father couldn't find work again, so they had to give up the house, and move away."

"All because of ghosts?" Arai was sitting up now, looking at him with fascinated horror, his own recent scare temporarily forgotten.

"Something terrible happened in that house, and no one knew about it. The ghosts had a long time to be angry. They poisoned the house, and that family."

After only a day in that place, Mori himself had come down with a blinding headache, and a fever. He could scarcely imagine how bad it would've been, living there all the time.

"What happened? How come the ghosts were so mad?"

Mori had only told this story once, to his head priest, Jyuuzou-sama. And he'd been sick and shaking like a leaf, at the time.

"The family who lived there a long time ago....the husband got angry at something his wife had done. So angry that he killed her for revenge, and another person, and their son. And then he killed himself." 

He didn't bother explaining the details; that the wife had been unfaithful with that other person, and the husband had caught them in the act. He hadn't understood it himself at the time. Nor did he mention that the husband had gone on a bloody rampage with the family heirloom katana, before running himself through with it. The sight had given Mori nightmares for months, and he didn't care to pass that on to Arai.

"That ghost you saw just now, was she killed by somebody, too?"

"I believe she was." He explained about the orange lily, what it signified. How sometimes, ghosts gave clues about their death, or the things they'd been most compelled by, at the time they died.

"I think she wants someone to know it wasn't just an accident," he concluded. He remembered she had mentioned a name, the first time he'd seen her. An odd foreign name; someone to be careful of, she'd said. He couldn't recall the name for the life of him at the moment, though.

"What do you think we should do, to help her?" Arai asked, and Mori drew back and blinked at him.

"We?" He'd had no intention of Arai being involved. But he was sitting up straight now, facing Mori with that earnest, determined expression which meant he intended to face this challenge, no matter what   
.  
"'I've seen what those traps do. I'd be dead, if she hadn't been here. So we have to help her too, right? Just like you said, before."

It was true. If Arai had taken that extra step, he would've been maimed for life. Assuming he even lived to reach the village doctor. If the lady's ghost hadn't pointed out the first trap to Mori, he might've blundered off across the snow to lend aid, and stepped on one, himself. They both owed her for their lives; however they could manage it.

He leaned back on his hands, and sighed. "I don't know if we can do much. I can't take a ghost story to the constable. If I say someone was killed, they'll be asking how I know. All I can do is tell them about the traps. Setting them this close to a main trail is illegal, and they'll want to find the person responsible."

Arai nodded. "I can help with that. What about offerings, like you do at home?"

"We could make one at the shrine." Of course that generally required a donation of some sort, but Mori could probably come up with something. Then he remembered his other responsibility. "You could help me mark this place, so people know it's unsafe, if they come by. If we get a lot of rocks together, I can spell out a warning."

Arai promptly volunteered to collect all the rocks, while Mori set about triggering one of the traps, for evidence to take back to the constable. Unable to find a suitable rock or branch, he was forced to sacrifice the polished oak walking staff he'd used for years, thrusting it through the snow until he hit the center plate, and the teeth of the trap snapped shut, and cracked through the staff with a sickening crunch.

It was that sound, which stoked his anger to life again, and fueled him to decisive action. Dragging the trap and chain up from the snow, and hauling it back to their resting area; laying out the stones Arai had gathered, to spell out an emphatic warning on the ground. 

When all that was done, he was all ready to heft the trap over his shoulder, give Arai his pack to carry, and stride purposefully off for the village. But Arai halted him, with a hand on his coat sleeve.

"I'm sorry I was rude before, when you were trying to help me. I know I wouldn't have made it, without your help. So thank you, for...carrying me. And saving me."

His simple, honest humility very nearly demolished Mori's equilibrium. He was treading a hair-thin line as it was, between marching down to the village and venting everything that was wrong with his life at the constable's headquarters, or else saying to hell with the village and everyone in it, and marching Arai right back to the cottage, where he'd be safe from bear traps and ghosts and horrible lurking threats.

It would ruin his reputation in the village, true. He'd likely not find anyone willing to trade with him again, if he kidnapped Arai-san's charge. Eventually, Arai himself would come to resent Mori for making a captive of him, instead of being a friend. But there was a furious, completely unreasonable part of Mori which simply didn't care, and he was having a damned hard time ignoring it right now.

Fearing that if he opened his mouth, that unreasonable part would start talking for him, Mori just sighed, stepped forward to pull a somewhat startled Arai into his arms, and held on to him. He closed his eyes, and breathed him in, and allowed himself only this once, to know and feel just what he had almost lost forever.

After a second or two of surprised stiffness, Arai relaxed, tucked his chin over Mori's shoulder, and--carefully, tentatively, at first--embraced him back.

"I mean it this time. I really will be careful, from now on."

Pine sap and damp earth and crumbly autumn leaves; Arai smelled just like his blanket had, when it covered Mori on New Year's eve. Like the forest on a perfect clear day, when the trees blazed crimson and gold, and the sun poured like honey across the landscape.

"I know," Mori answered, pressing his cheek to Arai's hair. Already, he missed him so much.

"You be careful, too," Arai said. "I don't want anything bad to happen to you. I don't know what I'd do, if I couldn't see you anymore." He squeezed his arms around Mori's ribs, burrowing in against him, and Mori squeezed back, half in reassurance, half in desperate longing.

"I'll be careful. I promise you." He believed he was coming to understand now, the strength of feeling that kept a person earthbound after they died. He could not conceive of leaving this world, while Arai was still in it. No matter what, he would stay and look after him.

After all, Mori had been raised to serve a purpose. And after years of wondering and wandering nowhere particular, he had found it. Arai, holding fast to him in this moment, was all the purpose Mori would ever need. No matter where Arai went, how far or for how long, Mori would always, always belong to him.


	31. Chapter 31

It had been easy enough for Mori to accept the forest as a wild, mysterious, sometimes dangerous place. He took care, and respected the unknown forces which governed it, and though there were times he'd felt deeply uneasy, exploring in the darker, stranger parts of the woods, he had never felt specifically menaced.

That changed, on the day he discovered those bear traps near the path. It was as though something alien had insinuated itself here, changing a landscape he had trusted and felt familiar with. 

While there was nothing particularly alien or mysterious about some person with murderous intent, Mori had somehow never anticipated facing that particular evil in these woods. Perhaps it wasn't logical, but he'd long assumed he'd left such threats behind, in the cities and busy roads between towns.

But no. Human evil had come to dwell in the forest too, and Mori was no longer able to feel quite so at peace there, as he once had. A security he had never wholly appreciated was suddenly lost; from now on, he would have to be wary of things he hadn't worried about before. Besides spirits, and malign shadows, certain aggressive wild animals, and paths which appeared and vanished at whim--none of which Mori had ever objected to--he now also had to be cautious of at least one depraved, indiscriminate killer.

And this offended him, on a deep, insufferable level. It was a desecration of a place he had come to revere, and considered home. Granted the wilderness was supremely indifferent to his own well-being, and there were plenty of places he respected mainly by keeping well away from them. But the forest did not sin or commit taboos in taking life. Humans did, and they did so knowingly, and this made all the difference in the world to Mori.

If there was any advantage to his newfound discontent, it was that it deflected at least some of the initial pain of Arai's absence. From the time they left that rest area, Mori stayed too wary, too much on the defensive to fall into despair or lonely self-pity. 

The first morning he awoke to an empty, silent household, he decided he'd neglected his fighting exercises for too long, and that day commenced a rigorous re-training program, thinking that if he should confront this new threat in his world (and considering how it had trespassed against him, he was not averse to a confrontation) he'd best be in shape for it.

He began his regimen by doubling his regular morning calisthenics; adding rocks and rice sacks to his hiking pack and climbing every steep hill he could find within walking distance, and timing his hikes to the river and back, every day the weather didn't make it impossible. In a month's time, he shaved the half-hour trip to Onuma's barge down to twenty minutes, and strove to make it even faster.

In the years since he'd left the temple, his fighting and defensive techniques had suffered greatly from lack of guidance and regular practice. Every day for a week he spent hours just piecing together kata from memory, knowing any sensei would have wept at the state of his form. Kenjutsu, Aikido, Judo, Karate--Mori went back to the most basic beginnings of all the disciplines he'd studied, and worked with grim determination, through the days and late into the nights, to learn them all over again.

A little over two weeks after Arai had gone, the indoor plants began to fade and wither again. Having expected as much, Mori dutifully trimmed them back, made sure they got as much sun as possible, and when he wasn't forging his way across kilometers of countryside through shin-deep snow, or clawing his way up steep hills with his heavy pack, or painstakingly re-learning kata one tedious movement at a time, he attempted to speak to them. He read out loud from his books, recited lessons and sutras memorized in years past, talked about the day's adventures and the next day's plans. 

He didn't anticipate any spectacular results, and was not disappointed when they didn't occur. After all, the plants were only following the natural order of things; obeying the dormant season as they were meant to.

But Mori himself would not go dormant. He didn't have that luxury. Somewhere on the other side of the forest, a day's walk north of the village, he knew Arai was striving and giving his best effort every day, to make his place in the world. For Mori to simply lay around being a miserable wreck while Arai worked so hard would be unseemly. Just because he had no crops to till yet, and no supplies to finish his hothouse, it didn't mean he could hide indoors and languish, no matter how much he wanted to. While Arai was out improving his prospects, Mori could improve himself, in body and spirit. Rediscover his old rigorous discipline, and see what it could teach him now.

And who knew, perhaps he would even put it to use one day.

**

At the time he'd promised Arai to visit the village every week, it hadn't occurred to Mori that his visits might eventually raise some eyebrows. Because of his desire for privacy and anonymity, he had made it his habit over the last few years to only visit when absolutely necessary--when he had trading business, specifically--and everyone he knew was accustomed to that habit. Realizing there would be public speculation at the sudden change, he decided he should have reasonable excuses for visiting so frequently, and that it would be less conspicuous, if he varied his destination each time.

The first two weeks, he hiked down on the pretext of seeing the constable, to check for any news about the investigation into those bear traps near the forest path. When he and Arai had first brought the matter to the authorities, it had caused a minor uproar; most everyone reacted exactly as Mori initially had.

The constable had called together a search party immediately, to go collect and dispose of the illegal traps. After scouring the area, the group located the ones Mori had seen, and four others he had not, but they found no clues to indicate the origin of the traps, or who might have set them. They were not the work of the local blacksmith, nor did any merchant or craftsman in town who dealt in hunting goods recognize them.

Neither did the search turn up any past evidence of foul play, or any clues at all related to the foreign lady's ghost. Mori had gone with the constable's men to assist the search, and saw every square meter of snow in the area they turned over. But the ghost and her lily had vanished, and beneath the snow by the beeches--as everywhere else--they saw only hard soggy earth.

On his return a week later, he learned the constable had interviewed every hunter they could find in the area. Assuming they were all being honest, every one of them was outraged by the incident. Which actually stood to reason, since all those individuals hunted for subsistence and small trade, and would no sooner jeopardize their livelihood by flouting the restrictions concerning trapping, than endanger their family and fellow villagers by careless practices.

Suffice it to say, there were no suspects and no local leads turned up by the interviews. In the second week, Mori learned the authorities had dispatched two men to visit neighboring communities, and see if anyone could identify the traps, or whether any similar incidents had occurred elsewhere.

At that point, it seemed there was little to be gained by continuing to visit the constable. If there was news on the situation, they would let him know. Pressing them every week for developments would make him a nuisance, and imply a lack of confidence in their abilities.

**

He had told Arai that if he needed help, or simply wanted to pass a message along to him, to get word to anyone they both knew. This would include Arai-san, obviously, who was always abreast of the latest goings-on in the region. It would also include Fukuo, who periodically made supply runs out to the estate and provided transportation to its staff, to and from the village. 

So on his first visit, after his talk with the constable, Mori had spent some time at the grocery, accepting a cup of tea and filling Arai-san in on the situation with the unknown lawless hunter. But to his keen disappointment, the grocer had little to offer regarding Arai, beyond a hopeful mention that the young man seemed to be settling in all right out at this estate.

Inwardly Mori was crestfallen, but social conventions being what they were, of course Arai-san couldn't tell him the details he really wanted to know, and Mori didn't feel entitled to ask. Was Arai sleeping okay? Did he stay warm enough? Were they treating him well? Was there at least one person there, who could appreciate his worth, and remind him of it, in case he got discouraged?

It was after that encounter, that Mori earnestly began prying his earliest fighting exercises out of the rusts of his memory. After hiking back alone to the dark quiet cottage, he knew if he let those unanswered worries consume him, he'd drive himself mad. His only recourse was to keep himself too busy to worry; to keep his time and his thoughts otherwise occupied, as much as possible.

The second visit, after leaving the constable's, he sought out Fukuo, who had returned from the estate only the day before. The man was just as taciturn as ever, but Mori was somewhat encouraged to learn that Arai had sent his regards, and had apparently been mastering the use of a hedge-trimmer.

"Reckon he'll be expert at it soon," Fukuo had remarked, out of a lengthy silence. "Place has a fair bit of hedge planted around."

As Mori began the long trek back to the cottage that time, plagued yet again by unanswerable questions, he consoled himself with the reasoning that if Arai wasn't doing well, Fukuo surely would've noticed, and commented on it, as he had commented after Arai left the butcher's employ. 

He told himself that two weeks at the estate, with no bad news, had to be a good sign. And as soon as he got back to the cottage, he forced the visit and his lingering doubts to the very back of his mind, and exercised until he dropped from exhaustion. 

**

For the third weeks' visit, Mori wrapped up a stack of his best carved bowls and an altar tray he'd fashioned, and brought them down to the winter market, to trade for a modest bottle of fine aged plum wine. Having decided to give the constable's office a break, he took the gift straight to Hito-sama's, as a friendly exchange for orchard advice, and whatever news or gossip the old man cared to share with him.

Hito-sama was contentedly living out his twilight years in a former one-room tea house, in the garden behind his eldest son's home. The son had married off a son and a daughter of his own already, and they visited frequently, bringing their own children, so that the house was very nearly constantly full of people. In addition, the youngest daughter also lived at home, still . Though she was of marriageable age, and possessed pleasing looks and temperament, it seemed the girl was devoted to her grandfather and parents, and not at all inclined to start a family of her own yet.

It had been the old man's idea to give the house over to the next generation, and retire to the little tea house out back. He was fond of his family, but at his age preferred quiet and privacy, both of which were in extremely short supply in the main house. In fine weather, he spent the mornings tending the exquisite courtyard garden, and the vegetable plot off the kitchen, and following his afternoon nap, he liked to sit indoors, or out on his porch; reading, chatting with visitors, or simply enjoying the sight of his peaceful sanctuary.

Of course in wintertime there wasn't much to tend, but so long as it wasn't too cold to go out, Hito-sama kept to his routine nonetheless. Pottering about in his wide-brimmed straw hat, and padded cotton coat, raking his mulch-trough and tsk-ing over his rose bushes and bamboo, until someone called him in for lunch.

Mori had always liked Hito-sama. He was wise, and happy, and universally kind, and he lived an exceedingly simple life. If it should work out that Mori himself made it to such a ripe old age, he had long ago decided he wanted to live in just the same way. Taking up no more space than he needed, staying active and useful, and still able to smile at everyone he met.

He did recognize that a large part of Hito-sama's happiness came from being surrounded by family and friends, and having people to look after him when he needed it. Mori was somewhat disadvantaged in this regard, having no family, and only one friend remotely close by. But he'd deemed that a situation he was a long way off from having to worry about.

**

Upon arriving at Hito-sama's, he entered through the courtyard gate; a privilege extended to the old man's personal friends, which saved everyone the hassle of visitors coming and going through the busy main house. There he found the old man sweeping up cuttings from the paving near the flower beds, and was just in time to lend a hand with the dust pan.

"Ah. Morinozuka-san, dependable as always," Hito-sama smiled, gap-toothed and cheerful, from under his wide straw hat.  
"Hito-sama is looking very well today," Mori answered. "I hope I'm not interrupting your work?"

"Not at all, not at all. Just finishing a bit on that shrubbery. Looking like a wet spring this year, reckoned I"d trim back extra now, and save some trouble next month." He eyed the perfectly even shape of the hedge along the courtyard wall, and gave a satisfied nod, before shuffling off to put away his broom.

"No more freezes this winter, then?" Over the years, Hito-sama had proved more reliable than an almanac for predicting the seasonal changes. He was better than any farmer Mori had ever known and as far as he knew, the old man had never been wrong. 

"Eh, we might see one or two more spells of frost down here. Nothing hard though, I wager. Up at your elevation, there's bound to be some more snow. Maybe an overnight freeze. You'd best sit tight another few weeks."

"Ah," Mori frowned. It was about what he'd expected, but he'd half hoped Hito-sama might tell him to plan for an early spring. The last weeks of winter had always made him restless and impatient, and this year in particular, he had a strong desire for as much hard work as he could find.

Once all his gardening tools were cleaned and put away, Hito-sama led Mori into the teahouse, where it was warm and bright, with the late morning sun glowing through all the paper-screened windows. He presented his gift of plum wine, which was received with great enthusiasm, and declared just the thing for taking the chill from old bones on a cold evening. And since Mori politely declined a taste at that moment--it was mid-morning, after all--the old man bade him take a seat while he brewed some first-rate tea in the traditional manner, over the little fire pit in the floor.

They discussed weather and soil conditions awhile, and when the timing seemed right, Mori brought up his trouble with that one old tree in the center of his orchard. He thought it might have been improving under Arai's attentions, but in the past week it seemed to have gone into a steep decline. Just the day before, he'd gone out to check on it, only to discover a thick dead branch-- nearly as long as he was tall--had snapped completely off the trunk.

Hito-sama listened gravely to all the symptoms, nodding and hmm-ing to himself, and then shook his head. "Can't say for sure without seeing it, but it sounds like that one might be done for. Those trees of yours have been around longer than I have, y'know. It's a wonder that orchard is still yielding at all. You get a look at the roots, yet?"

Mori explained that he hadn't noticed the tree ailing until it was too cold to go digging; that he was waiting until after the danger of frost was past.

"I'd suggest you take a look late next month, then. If your roots are all right, then dose it up with fertilizer. High phosphorous would do good. Get extra water to it. If the trunk's hollow, then it's going to have trouble getting water to the limbs. I bet that's why you've got branches coming off."

Mori thanked him, filing away all the advice, and hoping it might do some good. With that topic of concern out of the way, he asked after Hito-sama's family. According to the usual pattern of their conversations--weather and health, followed by horticulture issues, then family news, and on to general town gossip and historic tales from the old man's treasure trove of a memory--Mori thought before very long, he might be able to discreetly steer the discussion toward any news of Arai. He was someone the old man looked upon fondly, after all, and inasmuch as he'd been able, Hito-sama had taken interest in Arai's prospects early on.

And perhaps it was Mori's lucky day, since Hito-sama himself took a shortcut from genial discussion of family and the scattering of children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren whose names Mori could never quite keep straight in his mind, directly to Arai's latest situation, all on his own.

It seemed his favorite granddaughter, the one who still lived at home, had gone off to work at the estate as well, as a housemaid. This grandchild Mori could remember, since he'd met her several times, and since she was called by a memorable nickname; Kuki-chan. If the girl had a proper name, he'd never heard anyone use it. She was simply Kuki-chan, to all and sundry. Of course every time he heard it, Mori thought of that distinctive tea made from roasted twigs, and who on earth could forget a girl called after twig tea?

"Her mother worried about sending her off," Hito-sama mentioned, "but it's bound to be good for her. She was always a bit of a flighty child, but give her some responsibility, and she'll get her confidence, that's what I say. Looks like she's shaping up well so far, too. Got a letter from her just last week--." From a spot near his seat cushion, Hito-sama pulled a folded square of paper, and unfolded it, before proudly handing it over for Mori's inspection.

"Glad I kept her calligraphy lessons up, after school," he remarked, while Mori politely nodded over the letter. "Hardly seems like anyone appreciates a well-written letter anymore. But a person learns thoughtfulness, and patience, working with a brush and ink. Folks neglect that sort of character-building nowadays, but it's still important. Doesn't Morinozuka-san agree?"

"I do," said Mori, recalling his instruction with Arai, and how he'd endeavored to pass on that same attitude to handwriting, as it had been emphasized for years, with Mori himself. 

Kuki-chan's letter was prettily executed, there was no denying. The tone was affectionate, a bit meandering perhaps--not unlike the girl's manner of speaking, from what he'd encountered. But it was done in a dainty hand, with a pleasing flair to the strokes which indicated skill and meaningful practice.

"It's quite a nice letter. Thank you for sharing it with me." And as Mori was returning the missive, he had a sudden spark of an idea. "Were you planning on writing back?"

"In the next day or so, I suppose. Does Morinozuka-san wish to send his regards?" The old man smiled, lifting just a hint of a speculative eyebrow, and for a moment Mori was trapped between the urge to backpedal furiously from any implication of courtship whatsoever, and his equally strong desire to avoid causing offense.

"Ah. Well. A simple 'hello' would be....fine, thank you. But--if it's not any trouble, I wonder if I might pass on a message, for another friend there?"

"You want to send a letter? I don't see that two letters are any more trouble than one. By all means, leave it here, and I'll see that it goes out."

Mori was glad he'd brought writing supplies in his hiking pack today, and after asking Hito-sama's indulgence for a minute or two, he quickly pulled out pencil and paper, and borrowed space on the old man's table to write on.

"You're welcome to some proper ink and a brush, if you'd like," Hito-sama offered, but Mori shook his head.  
"Thank you, but it's only a quick note. My friend hasn't learned to read calligraphy yet."  
"Ah, you're writing that youngster, then." Hito-sama nodded his pleased approval. "Good for you. I understand he made quite a bit of progress, working up at your place. I was glad to hear it."

"Have you heard how he's doing, at the estate?" Mori asked, trying his best to sound casual, as he bent his head to his paper.  
"Well, I hear they like his aptitude. Sounds like he's the first one out in the morning, and he puts in as good a day's work as anybody there. Old friend of mine--Ikasu-san, he's the new head groundskeeper out there. Says he has high hopes for the boy. Most of that cleanup staff are farm labor, don't you know. They'll be heading out once planting season starts, but there's no reason the boy shouldn't get asked to stay on. Ikasu-san will put in a good word for him, for certain."

"Is it a good place to work?" Mori asked, after writing a couple of lines.  
"It pays good, sounds like the management is fair. Guess they'll find out for sure once the tenant shows up, but he's got decent folk working under him. They're all local people, good reputations all around. My daughter-in-law checked up on them--worried about that girl of hers, as well she should be. I reckon if we can trust sending Kuki-chan over there, then it's a respectable household."

"That's good to know," Mori nodded. He studied what he'd written so far, and found there wasn't much he could say which was within Arai's limited reading vocabulary. "I don't suppose I could impose on your granddaughter for a favor? If you'd rather she didn't, I understand...."

"You want her to pass your note on to the boy? I don't see anything objectionable to that. He did stay with us for a little while, after all, and everyone knows he's as harmless as they come."

"If he needed someone to help him read it, would it be all right to ask if she might assist him?"  
"She'd be happy to help him read it, I'm sure. Kuki-chan is always glad when she has someone to look out for. By all means, go ahead and write your note, and I'll ask her to help him out with it, when I write. That suit you okay?"

"I appreciate it, very much," said Mori, and bent to finish the letter.

 

_Hello, I hope you have been well._  
I am visiting Hito-sama today, and he tells me you are doing very good work at your new job.  
Hito-sama receives letters from his granddaughter, Kuki-chan. If you would like to write a letter, about your job, and what you are learning, I would be pleased to read it.  
Hito-sama says it will be a rainy spring this year. I hope the planting season comes soon. It will be nice to turn the soil again, and see the sun and the new plants growing. 

_Please do your best, and take care of yourself.  
Your friend,_

_Morinozuka_

 

It was certainly no great work of literature. Given such short notice, and knowing at least one other person would be reading it besides Arai, Mori was heavily limited with what he could say. As it was, most of the content would be past Arai's ability to decipher. But Mori had a feeling he would extend himself, and make sure to memorize the words he didn't already know. So if nothing else, it could turn out to be a useful reading lesson for him.

As he left the letter with Hito-sama, giving effusive thanks and making a mental note to provide both he and his granddaughter with appropriate gifts of appreciation, Mori felt curiously unburdened, for the first time in weeks. If Arai could write back, they could communicate. Mori need not suffer their separation in silence. Nor need he depend on vague mentions by third parties the entire time.

The simple act of words passing between them; it was something to hope for. Something to help him get by, in the weeks and months to come.


	32. Chapter 32

_Dear Morinozuka-san. Today is rained too much so no work. Thank you many times for letter you write. Kuki-chan helping me read and write letter. I learning new words for more write letter with you._

_At work I learn cut hedge straight. Too much days cut hedge. Now all straight. I learn dig water ditch for garden. Too much rocks in garden. I learn build fence and fix tools._

_I hope Morinozuka-san health is good. I hope house and trees is good also. I like reading more letter of Morinozuka-san please._

_Thank you for to be good friend. From this person also friend Arai-kun._

 

**

From the moment Mori received the folded note from Arai-san, he burned with impatience to get away somewhere he could read it privately. However the grocer, being immensely impressed with Arai's accomplishment (for he too had received a short letter), had to discuss his appreciation at length, for what Mori had done for the young man.

"I should've known Morinozuka-san would be as good as his word, but this is remarkable, what you've taught him."  
"Please, I did very little," said Mori. "He's the one who did all the hard work of learning."

"But in two months, he learned all this!" Arai-san shook his head in amazement. "You must have worked with him every day. I've never known a teacher so dedicated."

In actuality, all Mori had done was copy his own education. When he wasn't carrying out chores, he had taken lessons for hours every day, as had his cousin, with private tutors. Until Arai-san mentioned it, it hadn't occurred to him that many people didn't have the advantages he had. His education had been too rigorous and demanding for him to classify it as a luxury, but he was now realizing that in many respects--particularly from the viewpoint of someone brought up in a small rural village--it had been.

But still, it was Arai's intense desire and persistence which deserved the credit, much more than Mori's teaching. All he had done was show the young man what he knew. All the effort of practice and assimilation--and it had been a tremendous amount of effort--had come from Arai.

"He did work every day. He wanted very much to learn."  
"I confess I feel remiss now, seeing this." Arai-san regarded the letter on the table between them, and sighed. "I knew the kid was bright. I told the schoolmaster so. But his time is stretched thin as it is. And he said if he put the kid in with the young children, there would be trouble with the parents. Too disruptive, he said."

Too much trouble, Mori thought bitterly. The strange foundling boy was a nuisance to them, an upset in their narrow lives, and nothing else. Not for the first time, he was phenomenally grateful that Arai-san had shipped that boy up to him. Before the indifference and closed hearts of others had damaged his spirit irrevocably.

"I don't think it was remiss," he offered, doing his best to be diplomatic. "It doesn't sound like a school environment was the best place for him. You tried to do what was best, and help him find a good place. He's working hard, to show how much he values your help."

"If you don't mind my saying, it's a great weight off my mind, knowing he's learning, and working up at that place. Since I took him in, all I wanted was to know he'd be able to stand on his own feet. I'd like to think I'm going to live to a good old age, but I worried if I didn't, who'd look out for the kid. But now, if he can read and write, and hold a steady job, I don't have to worry so much. He'll be okay."

"He will," Mori agreed. Thinking that no matter what the future brought, he would make sure Arai was okay.

**

He read the first letter until he'd memorized it. Kept it tucked in his shirt pocket, and pulled it out several times a day, until the creases in the paper went thin and felt-textured. Unknowingly, he smiled over the childish blocky handwriting, the eraser smudges where Arai had made corrections, the verb tenses that got away from him still. Whenever the quiet in the cottage got too heavy, or he caught himself staring out at the dawn-frosted grasses in the clearing with a pang of despair, Mori would pull Arai's letter out and carefully unfold it. He would gaze at the painstaking pencil strokes on the page, and picture how Arai must have looked as he made them. As he carefully put down the words he knew, and puzzled over the ones he didn't, all the while thinking of Mori. Striving to reach him, through the medium of symbols on paper.

Mori would remember how he looked, and how he sounded, breathing peacefully in the bed next to him. His scent and solid warmth, the last time Mori had held on to him. And this was how, day by day, he continued holding on.

**

_The orchard stream is full, from the melting snow,_ Mori wrote. _Every day more birds arrive, and there are white flowers and yellow flowers growing on the river bank._

_I am glad to know you are learning to fix tools. It is a very useful skill. Next time you visit, you can teach me what you have learned._

_In a few days, I will begin planting new crops. Spring is a good time to grow asparagus, so that is what I will plant first. Next I will plant small potatoes, and melon. Will you be planting, in the garden you worked in?_

_I have carved a new walking staff, from a pear tree branch. It is lighter to carry than the staff I used to have, but it feels stronger. I think it will last a long time._

**

_It is quiet because the farm men is gone to working to the farms. Now there is five men to working outside. But more to working in the big house because the owner is come soon._

_The owner is name Kureko-sama. Ikasu-san says._

_There is many bird and squirrel and mouse here. Ikasu-san says be careful of snake. I be careful in tall grass. I not making snake mad._

_Kuki-chan says Morinozuka-san bring melon very very good. It is good Morinozuka-san to growing melon. I did not taste asparagus but I taste some day._

_I now learn planting garden. I learn fixing hot house for flower for Kureko-sama bring soon. Big hot house for all growing flower. No other thing._

_Ikasu-san says good I working on hot house with Morinozuka-san. Ikasu-san says Morinozuka-san teaching very good._

_Every day, I says thanks to Morinozuka-san teaching and being good friends._

**

The weeks passed, and the days grew long and warm. Mori turned the earth in his vegetable plot, sowed another years' seeds, and watched a carpet of abundant green sprouting in the rich mountain soil. He moved the potted anemone outdoors, and finally saw it unfurl on its own in the bright spring sun. The pear orchard greened and blossomed as well; hundreds of tiny pale flowers, like a dusting of snow on the swaying branches, and like snow they eventually dropped free and fluttered to the ground, or were swept away in sweet-smelling flurries by the wind.

Only the tree in the center was bare of leaves and blossoms; all alone it stood stark and brittle, as though cold winter still reigned in that one spot. On a mild, sun-soaked afternoon in early May, Mori finally took his shovel and spade, and went to inspect its roots.

It didn't take long, to see that the old tree was done for. The roots were no better off than the rest of the tree; already they'd begun to decay in the cool damp soil, and were breaking apart under the prodding of his spade.

Feeling a deep, weighted melancholy, Mori patted the trunk of the pear tree, just as Arai had once done. "You lived a long, useful life," he told it. "Please accept my humble gratitude, for all you've given these many years."

From the pear seeds he'd planted too early in the year, only one runty little seedling had survived. He'd moved it from the window box, to its own pot off the porch, where day by day it was growing sturdier. Perhaps in another month or so, he could safely transplant it here, giving it time to root in before the autumn rains came.

In the meantime, he'd need to remove the dead tree, and its roots, which would be no easy feat. He suspected part of the tree's difficulty had been the large rock beneath the roots, which his spade periodically struck. It was so bound by the roots, that he couldn't dig it out without damaging his spade, and Mori determined that he'd need help pulling the entire tree from the soil, or else cutting it down to a stump, before he could go in with an axe and shovel, and clear out the remainder.

Fukuo's draft horse was likely strong enough for the job, and Mori didn't doubt he'd be willing to help, if he got to take home the tree for firewood. On his next week's visit, he'd see if Fukuo had time for the job, when he brought up Mori's next load of supplies for the hothouse.

It was a good, reasonable plan. But for many days after confirming the tree's demise, Mori found it hard to escape his disappointment over it. The mood hung over him, wherever he walked and worked and tended the cottage property; for the first time he caught himself pondering the mortality of a place that had seemed timeless to him up to now.

According to Hito-sama, who was nearing his ninth decade, pear trees only lived fifty or sixty years. And yet the orchard had been mature when he was born. So were the trees just now reaching the end of a remarkably long lifespan? Or was it something to do with his living here, that meant time was somehow catching up to this place, so long suspended in its abandonment?

The cottage was still sound, the walls and foundation as strong as the day he first inspected them. The well still gave all the fresh clean water he could need. The spring snowmelt rushed from the pool, down the stream to the orchard, exactly as it had every year so far. In short, there was nothing he could find amiss, beyond the loss of that one tree.

And yet Mori was uneasy. Somewhere, somehow, something was not right here, and no matter how he tried, he couldn't find the source of his discontent. Maybe in all this solitude, his reason was beginning to slip, as it did when some people lived alone too long. Maybe the combination of Arai being gone, the still-unresolved matter of those bear traps in the forest, and the loss of a tree had all built up to significantly upset his peace of mind, to the point that he simply couldn't find peace anymore.

He would have lost sleep over it, had his daily workload been any less punishing. Rather than scale back on his exercising, once he took up the labors of growing season again, he simply added that work to his existing routine. There was less time for long hikes, so he pushed his endurance by wearing a heavy-weighted pack during his daily field work. And he still filled every hour of daylight with activity, meaning that instead of working from six or seven in the morning until five at night, he started his day around five in the morning, and went until the summer sun set, which was a little later every day.

He grew stronger, leaner, and not a day went by that he didn't wake up aching, or want to cry out with the near-agonizing relief of slipping into his steaming hot bath every night. When he slept, he slept like the dead; sinking into the very depths of unconsciousness, and hardly even rolling over until dawn.

From time to time, he recalled dreaming. Dreams which were remarkable only for their vividness, and utter lack of fancy. They were so simple and prosaic, that they seemed utterly real, and because of that, they lingered with Mori.

Mostly, he dreamt he was back in the temple he'd grown up in. Walking the stone halls and airy wooden walkways between buildings. It was nearing sunset, and as far as he could tell, he was all alone. He passed through rooms he hadn't recalled in years, wandered the courtyards, turned back from the far outer walls, to view the massive crossbeams of the great temple gate. Toward the end of these dreams, he always ended up in the head priest's study. Entering the room, as empty as all the others, bowing out of ingrained habit to the altar shelf there. Crossing to the low table stacked with scrolls and old books, and then sitting. 

That was all. He had that dream several times, and every time it was essentially the same. Nothing ever happened.

**

Late in the afternoon, toward the end of May, Mori had an accidental breakthrough on something which had troubled him for years. The circumstances of it were initially unsettling; enough to make him worry that what he had finally discovered, would turn out to be an object lesson in being careful what one wished for. Given the timing, it struck him as yet another portent, in a brooding string of them, all leading to the conclusion that the peaceful isolated life he'd enjoyed here at the cottage was drawing to some unknown, but inevitable closure.

He'd been out in the clearing, exercising with his pear-wood staff. Sweeping and thrusting and spinning his way through an advanced kata. He'd been at it for over an hour, and was dripping with sweat in the afternoon heat, pursuing a form that kept eluding him.

The staff was the one he'd made to replace his old walking stick, broken in the jaws of the bear trap he'd collected from that clearing, months ago. He'd carved this branch--fallen from the dead pear tree--with staff-fighting in mind, and in terms of weight and balance, it was far superior to his old one.

But to his frustration, his technique was not equal to the weapon, in this tricky series of steps. And though he worked doggedly to master it, one way or another, it always got away from him.

He had just gone through the kata at a slow pace, thinking through every angle of his body, every transition of joint, bone, and muscle, and was preparing to do it again at the proper speed, when he sensed a shift in the air around him; like a swift, silent crackling of static slipping over his skin. In that instant, he knew someone was approaching him. He was fully conscious of their presence in the clearing, creeping up at his back, without a sound.

Jolted as he was by this awareness, he did his utmost not to betray it. Nothing changed in his breathing, his posture, the angle of his gaze. He went on exactly as he had been; setting his stance in the dirt, shifting his grip on the staff, still readying himself to repeat the kata, even as he felt the intruder drawing silently nearer.

He waited, and dawdled, until the very last instant. Until he was positive the person sneaking up on him was in striking range, and then he exploded into spinning motion, his whole body snapping like an unleashed bowstring, whirling around and driving his staff forward, marking his target, exactly where he'd predicted, and--

Jerking up short, with the staff frozen in place, not four centimeters from the center of Onuma's chest.


	33. Chapter 33

For a moment, neither of them moved. Mori stood poised to thrust; Onuma stood with his arms at his sides, eyes locked to Mori's. He was motionless, utterly calm, offering no reaction whatsoever.

Then his gaze slipped downward, considering the blunt end of the staff at his chest, so close a deep breath would bring him into contact with it. "I expected you'd be fast. And accurate. But you've got a problem."

Mori breathed, eased back slowly, lifting the staff away. Onuma slipping up on him, and the man's conspicuous lack of surprise made him somewhat wary, but he'd never liked having conversations while pointing weapons at people. "What's that?"

"Pulling your strikes is a bad habit to learn. If you don't intend to disable your opponent, your body knows it. Your form and energy collapse, your strike has no power, and you have nowhere to go afterward."

"You knew I'd stop," said Mori. "You didn't try to dodge."  
The corner of Onuma's mouth pulled up in a half-grin, and he arched one eyebrow. "I trusted you would stop. I knew you had the control for it."

"I've never disabled anyone before."  
"It shows," Onuma nodded. "You're well-disciplined for defense and mastery, not so much for combat, yes? Student of Matsuoka-sensei, then."

Mori blinked, genuinely surprised and suddenly more cautious than he had been. But if Onuma was discerning enough to draw such a conclusion, just from watching him move, there wouldn't be much use feigning ignorance.

"My sensei studied with him."  
Onuma's gaze turned inward, thoughtful, and Mori was sure he was searching for a connection in his memory. Eliminating names, calculating possibilities.

From the moment he'd turned and recognized his neighbor, he'd known this meeting wouldn't turn out as usual. Onuma may have looked as casual and unsurprised as he always did, but Mori could see it was a disciplined lack of surprise in this case, as opposed to the genuine article.

Like the feeling of the forest surrounding him, like the orchard, he could tell something had changed between them. Perhaps because Onuma had finally caught him practicing with the staff; a capability Mori had never before revealed to him. Or maybe--if he'd been feeling the same as Mori had lately--even from the point he'd decided to hike down from his river barge for a visit.

Mori stood by quietly, his staff upright at his side, waiting to see if this would finally be it. If this would be the long-avoided conversation, where each man revealed his history to the other. 

It didn't trouble him so much as it would have a year ago. Onuma had trusted Mori to look after him during his illness. And he in turn had arrived just in time to save Mori's life, on New Year's eve. If Mori had been inclined to distrust, or dread the consequences of any revelations between them, it was canceled out by the memory of Onuma looking down at him when he came to, at Mizuko-chan's pool. Fussing over him, chiding him for his carelessness, in the way that only someone with an honest stake in another's well-being would do.

If Onuma had ever meant him ill, or had ever been inclined to injure or betray him, he'd had more than enough opportunities to do it already. If he were the sort to seek profit by using a person's secrets against them, he could have done so a dozen or more times before now.

So Mori wasn't particularly worried, about where Onuma might take the conversation next, or what would be revealed from here. He was curious--in the way of a man observing his opponent in the early stages of a Go game, before the character of the game and the players' strategies had quite coalesced--to see where Onuma would focus next, what he would do with the knowledge he had so far. And he was curious whether Onuma would offer any information in return; whether he would make any effort to equalize the balance of knowledge, as it had been between them thus far.

In a rather unexpected way, Onuma did.

"A man is only half-equipped in his art, if all he knows how to do is defend." He regarded Mori with a decisive air, now. With a look very much reminiscent of Mori's budo sensei from years ago, who, having spotted an inadequacy in his young student, would resolve himself to correcting it. Like a builder discovering a flaw in his work, rolling up his sleeves to do the work anew. "I take it it's been awhile since you did anything but fight the air."

"It's been awhile since I did that, even," Mori confessed, with a strong suspicion of what Onuma had in mind for him. "I let my training lapse for quite awhile."

Onuma tilted his head. "And now you've taken it up again. You feel it's become necessary."  
"I think the constable has dismissed that incident with those traps." 

This was only one cause of several, but he was reassured to see a faint scowl darkening Onuma's countenance, just then. He had heard about the traps from village gossip, and had been briefly furious when Mori confirmed the story. There had been no further developments, no other discoveries in the four months since, and the situation had gradually slipped from everyone's concern. 

Everyone save for Mori, who still felt that evil encroachment when he walked the forest paths. And Onuma, who evidently felt much the same way.

"Living in a town, where you think it's civilized, it's easy to get lulled into thinking you're safe," said Onuma.  
And there was that word again. Civilized. It seemed to Mori that Onuma had a particular interest in the difference between the laws of man, and the un-rationalized nature of basic cause and effect which lay largely beyond man's governance.

"I was lulled into thinking the forest was safer," Mori answered. "But it doesn't feel safe here, anymore."

Onuma lifted his chin, considering the clearing, the cottage, the half-walled frame of the hothouse. "This place is as safe as it gets. Beyond this property, though....I think all bets are off, as they say."

"You know this, for certain?" He'd long been aware that there was something intrinsically different about this property, which set it apart from the land beyond its boundaries. But all he had to go on, were odd clues and incidents, which never seemed to add up to anything definite. He didn't know the history or the purpose of the difference. Nor could he grasp the precise nature of it. 

The land protected itself. Warding off trespassers for decades, before Mori had arrived. Challenging him to his uttermost limits, when he had first come. Resisting his attempts to change it, until he conformed his changes to some mysterious, arcane geometry that only Arai had been able to grasp, inexplicably.

The property had endured. And had somehow ensured it would belong only to itself. Mori understood this much. This notion Onuma implied, that it was a safe place for him, for anyone, was entirely new, however.

Although....casting his memory back a few years. Wasn't that what the lady's ghost had implied, before she'd left? He'd been exhausted and starving, and seriously injured at the time. And perhaps on that account, he hadn't precisely believed her.

_"...Tend this place, and it will shelter you."_ Those had been her words to him. And in a perfectly literal sense, this had been true. The cottage had protected him well, from storms and cold, and driving rains. The root cellar had saved him from starvation. And when he had tilled the land, it had fed him abundantly, with enough surplus to trade for all he needed.

"Just out of curiosity," Onuma asked, "when was the last time you were sick?" He'd been watching Mori, with an expression like he was picking up the thoughts turning in his head, and in that particular moment, Mori wouldn't have been terribly surprised to learn that Onuma _could_ do that.

"I--don't know. It's been awhile." He'd always had a strong constitution, ever since childhood. He might come down with a mild cold once a year, in the sleet and wet of the winter season. Never serious enough to put him down for more than a day. Not since he was very young, anyway. But in the--what, three, three and a half years since he'd come here? He hadn't had so much as a sniffle.

Interesting.

"You ever get hurt, out here?" Onuma asked. "Bruises, splinters, burn yourself cooking?"

Mori thought hard, knowing even as he searched his memory, that Onuma was on to something important. Something that might be earth-shaking, except that deep within himself, Mori had sort of known it all along. "Mosquitoes," was all he could come up with. "Some blisters, pulling weeds."

Suddenly, he recalled Onuma's questions, from when they'd first met. "I got hurt when I first came. You saw that."

Onuma nodded soberly. "You bled on the ground when you got cut, didn't you."  
"Yeah," Mori turned and pointed, to a spot near the center of the clearing. "Right over there. Lost a lot of...." He trailed off, feeling a vague chill, as though a massive cloud had just blocked the sun. 

Still staring at that spot, he finally asked, point blank, the question which had bothered him a long time.

"What do you know?"

"Nothing that you don't," Onuma answered evenly. "You were the one raised in a temple. Learned the myths, and superstitions. Blood is important. As a symbol. As a bond. It's one of the most powerful things we possess. We take it for granted, forget to be careful with it. People seldom realize, when they shed blood, that they give up a part of themselves. And when something is given, there is always something there that takes. Whether we notice it or not, an exchange is made."

"So...." Mori turned back, looking to Onuma, feeling his way around an idea whose implications stretched high and wide, teasing the limits of his comprehension. It hardly seemed credible, to him. And yet. "I'm bound to this place? Because I bled here?"

"Or it's bound to you."  
"But what about all the people before?" Mori frowned. "Everybody who came here got hurt, right? That's what I heard. Didn't anybody else bleed?"

"A few," shrugged Onuma. "I saw some who got a little banged up, had to help them out. But you were the only one who stayed. They got hurt and ran home. You stuck it out."

"I had no choice," Mori pointed out. "I didn't know there was a village. I didn't think I had food and water to make it back to the road. And I was weakened."  
"Maybe that made you more committed than the rest of them. Maybe you were the first one to prove strong enough."

"Strong enough for what?"  
Onuma gazed off into the woods, toward the north where the path to the village began. "I wonder. I've wondered a long time, why this place is here. What sort of person would make a home here. Did they make it like this? Or was there something about this place, that they chose for a reason?"

"Hito-sama says the orchard was fully grown, before he was born," Mori mentioned. "Pear trees aren't supposed to live this long."

Onuma looked back at him. Regarding the wooden staff in his hand. "Someone wanted it to last. And I keep thinking, there are only two kinds of places, that people really build to last a long time."

"Temples," Mori guessed, since that seemed obvious, and Onuma nodded.  
"Yes. And fortresses. Would you be interested in trying an experiment?"

He had a hunch about what Onuma's experiment would entail. But what the man said had struck him. "Fortresses protect against enemies. What kind of enemy would a place like this protect someone from?" It was just a cottage and a clearing, after all. It had been generally unfriendly to trespassers in the past, but that was about it.

"What kind of enemies are you taking up your bo-staff against?" Onuma gave him a sharp, knowing smile. "What is it, that you're so in opposition to?"

_"Everything gives and takes, in balance,"_ Mizuko-chan had once said. Action and reaction. Cause and effect. These were the principles that all the world, and nature, worked on. Opposition was a principle of balance, as well.

Mori didn't know his enemy. He had never--at least not to his knowledge--seen them. But he knew what he was opposed to. He looked across the sun-warmed clearing to the cottage, to his vegetable patch beyond. He considered the orchard, Mizuko-chan's pool, and her turning of stones, to keep the clean flow of water moving, preventing the river from flooding upstream, preventing stagnation or drought.

Somewhere, in the nature and the principles that governed this place, was his answer. Find the opposite of that, and he would find his enemy. But he had only a small, faint grasp on it, in theory.

"I'm not sure there's a word for it," he told Onuma. "Disorder? Imbalance?"

Onuma cocked his head, intrigued. "You're seeking the root of it. Or the end result."  
"I was thinking what this place would stand against," Mori shrugged. And then, after a moment's hesitation, "What about you? Are you opposed to anything?"

"You mean, would I pick a side, if a fight came?" He clasped his hands behind him and looked down at the ground at Mori's feet. Down at his own dusty boots, and his smile had a tinge of old injury, long healed but still remembered.

"I'm opposed to the sort of person I used to be. Where I once caused harm, now I try to save people from it. My work was once for hire. Now I do it for nothing. I used to travel the countryside, always on the move. Now I live by the river, and watch it go past me. And I used to make it a point, never to serve any cause. My talents were for sale to anyone with the means to buy. Principles were no object."

Mori didn't need to be reminded of what the man had told him at New Year's. That he liked a good cause. So that was different now, too. And the rest, it all drew him back, strangely enough, to a comment Arai had made.

"Were you really a ninja?" he asked, unafraid for the time being, of sounding blunt. He felt there was a reason, though he couldn't quite articulate it yet, that they were learning about one another. Perhaps the time for it had come. Or the need for better knowledge, not unlike the need Mori felt to ready himself, was on its way.

Onuma's smile widened, looking less strained, and more genuinely amused. "You heard that rumor, eh? I guess I was trained appropriately for it. But that sort of service never appealed. Bit too fanatical, for my liking."

"You were trained to disable opponents. Not just defend. You've fought, for real."  
"I've fought for my life," Onuma nodded.

Mori needed that. He knew it. Onuma had pinpointed the gap in his capabilities, a liability which could prove fatal, if he didn't seek to correct it. And with his deficiencies in mind, the deep-rooted need to apply himself, improve himself, he bowed to Onuma.

"I would be very grateful, if Onuma-sensei would accept me as his student. If he would consent to instruct me, I would humbly do my utmost to learn from him."

"Are you sure about that, Morinozuka-san? You should know I'm not a proper teacher. I may forget to go easy on you. It's different from learning defense. Either of us could get hurt."

Mori straightened, and leveled an intent look at his neighbor. Thinking of those bear traps. Thinking of his feeling of darkness gathering, like clouds in a distant storm front. Storms blew up quickly in this region, and often they broke without any warning.

"I wish to do whatever is necessary, to learn. Fighting air doesn't do me any good."

Onuma kept his face serious, but there was a twinkle in his eye. "And if I'm unable to attack you, on this land? The hurt may well end up being all one-sided. Do you think you can handle that?"

"One-sided? In what way?"

Leaning down, Onuma picked a small pebble off the ground, at his feet. And then gathered a few more. "We were talking about how you haven't been hurt here, since that first time. And I have a theory about that. You mind if I test it out?"

"You're going to throw rocks at me?" Mori guessed, a little surprised, but not taken aback. He'd had stranger training exercises, before.  
"Just a small one. But first, I want to show you my aim. Pick a spot you want me to hit. Anywhere in range."

Mori looked around toward the tree line, spying a knotted pine at random. "Over there. The pinecone on the lowest left branch."

"You couldn't pick something challenging?" Onuma grinned, and then squinted toward the pinecone. "There's a bird dropping on the side, you see it?"  
Mori sought out the spot, and nodded.  
"I'll knock it off, and leave the pinecone hanging."

He turned to face the tree, eyeballing the distance, and then turned completely around in the opposite direction, and closed his eyes. "On your word," he said.

Though he'd never seen the his neighbor's true capabilities before--had never really suspected them until today, in fact--Mori somehow didn't doubt that Onuma would do as he had promised. What interested him most, was how the man would address the target. 

He waited, letting the quiet stretch out, noting Onuma's even breathing, his utter stillness. This wasn't showmanship. It wasn't meant to be an exhibition of accuracy, but of discipline, and Mori took time to appreciate it.

"Throw," he eventually said, watching Onuma spin, winding his arm back in a whipcrack blur, almost too fast for the eye to track, snapping the stone out, eyes still closed. It was half a heartbeat of deadly, effortless action, and then Mori's ear caught the faint tick of the stone scraping wood.

Mori let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd caught, and was forced to wonder if he himself could have made such a throw. Maybe with his eyes open. But not that fast. And from that one display, it was no stretch at all to guess that the man would be unerringly lethal throwing an edged weapon.

As an afterthought, he glanced at the pinecone. Still hanging, the white speck of the bird dropping gone. When he turned back, Onuma was looking at a somewhat larger stone in his hand, a little smaller than a chicken's egg.

"If I aim for the center of your chest, I can't miss. Do you agree?"  
Mori nodded, and Onuma added, "If I hit you, I'll be extremely surprised. And I apologize."

"Bruises heal," was Mori's answer. He was too intrigued at this experiment to mind. He watched Onuma's wind-up; more deliberate this time, before he lobbed the stone in a lazy overhand. 

The first throw fell short, thumping into the dirt at Mori's feet. The second throw had a little more force behind it, but it spun off to Mori's right. The third throw, Mori was absolutely certain would nail him in the head, and he nearly flinched. But at the last instant, he saw the stone's rotation change slightly, and it passed harmlessly above him, ruffling his hair.

"On my honor, I was aiming for your throat," Onuma mentioned.  
"I knew it would hit me." Mori pointed between his eyes. "Right there."  
"One last try." Onuma glanced around, and found a broken twig on the ground, about the width of his finger. He scooped it up, flipped it straight up in the air, and at the instant it touched his fingers, he flicked his hand and threw it at Mori's shoulder.

The twig struck and bounced off, painlessly.

"If I'd thrown that hard enough to hurt, it would've missed. I'll bet anything."  
"How does that work?" Mori asked, and Onuma shrugged.  
"How does water run fifty meters uphill, and into your rain barrel?"

_Ask Mizuko-chan,_ Mori was about to answer, but then a startling idea burst upon him.

"Mizuko-chan told me about things having a Don't-Touch mark. I never knew what she meant. But maybe that's what this is? Maybe I'm marked, too?" Like the cottage, and the well, and that single pinecone above the pool. Like the fox had been.....

_But what good had that done him?_ came the thought, in one of those ambush-stabs of bitter hurt, just as Onuma asked, "And what if you aren't? You willing to gamble your life and limbs, on a guess?"

And his protection wasn't really the issue, Mori realized. His personal safety wasn't the reason he'd been pushing himself for months, fighting the air, fighting the limits of his endurance, forcing himself to become stronger, faster; honing sense and sinew to a keen razor edge. 

If the storm he imagined should build and break, it would not fall on him alone. There was his home, and Onuma's, to consider. The village. Arai. There was the fox, and the promise he had made to it, which he couldn't possibly abdicate, on the mere basis of a nightmare. Not to mention his promise to that lady's ghost.

The fact that he was impervious to Onuma's impressive aim, was largely immaterial. If he was to have any chance defeating a threat to all he held dear, he must learn to go on the offensive, and win.

"If you'd like to know for sure," said Onuma, with a bare glint of humor in his eye, "we could always hike back to my place, and I could throw rocks at you there."

Mori couldn't deny that he was curious, to see just how far his protection reached. It was certainly worth finding out for sure, at some point soon. But he had his staff in hand already, and there was no knowing how long it would take him, to learn what he truly needed.

May as well start on that now, he figured.

"Later," he told Onuma. "I'd like to know. But if you don't mind, I'd rather begin our lessons, first."

Onuma cocked his head, favoring Mori with a sharp, one-sided grin. "You possesses uncommon focus, Morinozuka. I always liked that about you. Let me drop my hat and pack on your porch, and we'll find out how strong it really is."


	34. Chapter 34

After thirty minutes of sparring with his unexpectedly challenging neighbor, Mori was soaked in sweat, and breathing hard. Within an hour, he was nearly staggering, and still had yet to land a single strike on the unarmed man.

At first, they only parried and feinted with one another; kicking up dirt in the clearing, Onuma not even bothering to duck Mori's staff, but tracking his every move, and always knowing the precise instant to dodge.

"Come on, you still aren't following through, and you're wasting energy," coached Onuma. "Before you even move, you have to be set on taking me down."

But it was harder than Mori could have imagined, to attack Onuma with sincere intent, especially seeing that he held no weapon. He knew what he ought to do, knew that he was just tiring himself needlessly, with his failure to attack. But respect for his sparring partner, not to mention his neighbor, was too ingrained in him.

"Quit worrying about me. I'm not as fragile as I look," Onuma teased, slipping aside from Mori's staff yet again. His tone was light, but his eyes missed nothing; stripping Mori's smallest actions down past the skin and muscle, to the bone beneath.

The real match here, was Mori's struggle against his own habits, and inclinations, he knew. Even as he bore down, putting more force behind his strikes, pushing the speed of his attack and recovery, until Onuma finally was forced to evade him in earnest, he knew that the intent Onuma spoke of, the resolve to follow through, remained beyond his reach.

At the point that he lunged forward, chest heaving, blinded by sweat, and then tripped and felt the strap of his sandal tear loose from the sole, Onuma called a break. They weaved off for the well together, both winded, trading the water dipper back and forth a few times, and then Mori kicked both sandals off and carried the bucket to the porch, so they could sit and regroup.

"If you had a weapon," said Mori, when he was fit to talk again. "Maybe that would help."  
"I do have weapons. I just haven't needed to show them yet." Onuma leaned back against the porch post, wiping at his brow with his dampened handkerchief, and noted Mori's curious, questioning look. "I'm a weapon, for starters. Assuming anyone is unarmed is a quick way to get killed, in a real fight."

Mori nodded, and pondered this awhile, as the quaking in his legs subsided.

"Anyway, I don't think it's equality in the fight, that's bothering you. It's lack of provocation."  
"A reason to fight," Mori put in, feeling a tickle of memory, knowing he'd had a conversation very like this, before. With his sensei. Back at the temple.

"For what it's worth, I can tell I'd have real job on my hands, if I decided to attack you first," said Onuma. "But a smart opponent would see they'd have to wear you down, to have any chance, and that would be their strategy. The thing you have to learn, is to control the fight, by ending it quickly."

"How does someone learn that, without encountering a real enemy?" asked Mori.  
"Well," Onuma chuckled. "Most people aren't that difficult to provoke. They carry around aggressions they need to work off, and it's just a matter of knowing which strings to pull. But I suppose in your case, it's going to take some imagination. Start with a scenario where you would be forced to strike first. Put yourself there, and act accordingly."

What was that thing, Sensei had told him, back in another lifetime? About when he would have to put the purpose of what he'd been learning, to the test.

Mori's purpose--a tangible, concrete sense of it--had eluded him for quite a long time. But he had found it, hadn't he? All he had to do was picture Arai, staring down at the teeth of the bear trap, frozen with fear. Or crouched in the snow on the village bridge, after scrubbing the blood from his hands and arms. The pure affection in his eyes, brushing the mussed strands of hair from Mori's forehead, after that nightmare.

For Arai's sake, he could strike first. He could dig down into himself, and grab hold of that force--that latent, untamed energy that sometimes sparked in his marrow, and tightened his breath; there one instant and gone the next. He could take possession of it, drive ruthlessly forward, and end the fight. For Arai.

"Can we try again?" Mori asked. Before his muscles cooled down, and the soreness set in. Before he lost this urgency in his heart; the foreboding that the thing he was now imagining, he would--at some not too distant date--have to actually do.

Onuma looked him over critically. "You had a good workout, already. Sure you don't want to save some for tomorrow?"  
"I want to try something."

Onuma's answering shrug was loose and careless-looking. But he watched Mori from the corner of his eye, all the way back to the bare, level spot in the clearing where they'd sparred before.

"This time," he suggested, when they faced each other, "try and force me back. And I'll defend."  
Mori nodded and breathed deep, clearing his mind. Setting himself in the scenario he'd imagined. 

If Arai was in danger. In distress. If Mori had to break past this person, to reach him. He remembered how he'd honed his anger to cold precision, for every careful step following Arai's footprints in the snow, through the hidden gauntlet, at that rest area. He closed his eyes and sought that feeling again; that absolute outrage, choked down by sheer force of will to a perfect razor edge.

Then he opened his eyes, and saw Onuma, alert and waiting. He tried with all his concentration to un-see the man as he knew him. This was not Mori's neighbor, friend, and occasional rescuer. This was a threat. An obstacle. The icy gleam of steel in the snow.

When Onuma tipped his chin in a single nod, signaling readiness, Mori moved. This time it was fast, aggressive, and Onuma matched Mori's speed, striking for his unprotected spots with hands and feet. Some strikes landed in stinging slaps on Mori's ribs, arms, the side of his head, and Mori parried with blocks of the staff, forearms and elbows.

He knew this wasn't good enough; a real enemy could've injured him with any of those hits. He swung faster, wider, forcing Onuma to dodge back, as he pressed forward. The staff skimmed Onuma's shoulder, glanced off his arm; he was still too fast for Mori to get a square blow in, and not even breathing hard.

_Wearing me down_ , Mori thought, spinning the staff downward, to buy himself some space, and then dodging back a few steps. Onuma circled him, light on the balls of his feet, hunting for the next opening, while Mori imagined a serious enemy, drawing the fight out until his strength was too sapped. Circling like a scavenger.

And once Mori was finished, disposed of, his enemy would turn on the one he'd fought to save.

For just one moment, he could see it. It was all he could see, as a feeling like a pent-up roar swelled within him, a wave of pure brutal will and raw strength, rushing up from the very earth at his feet, through his legs, hitting the pit of his gut and exploding outward.

He and Onuma must have rushed at the same moment; Mori's eye registered movement and his body knew instantly the speed and angle of the body approaching him. He was beyond thought, in a place of pure motion; arms and legs and staff all seamless extensions of his instinct, all driven by the power humming in him, coiling ever tighter, ready for release.

It all happened in the space of a single gasp; Onuma threw a punch, just as Mori's staff thrust forward, a perfect square hit to the chest, and the force thrumming in him sprang loose like a crack of thunder slamming a mountainside.

Onuma did not fall, he _flew_ backward, glasses spinning off in a twinkling arc as he thumped to earth like a thrown sack of rice, and lay limp.

Mori's first reaction was stupid astonishment. Never had he thrown a man back like that, with only a jab of his staff. And he'd never felt that power connect through his weapon, like it was an intrinsic part of him, releasing at the point of impact. This was that thing Sensei had spoken of, it had to be....

Then Onuma retched, and tried to suck in a breath on the ground, arms splayed out, and Mori was seized with fear of what he'd done to the man. The staff dropped from his hands and he rushed forward, falling hard on his knees at Onuma's side.

"Sorry--I'm sorry, I didn't mean to--."  
Onuma blinked his eyes open, squinting up at Mori, wincing as he tried to pull another breath. "S'Fine. Good one."

But it didn't seem good at all; Mori's hands shook, pressing to Onuma's ribs and breastbone, to see if anything was broken. "That wasn't--that never happened before. Can you breathe? Is your head okay?"

Onuma flapped a hand at him weakly. "I'll live. See my glasses?"  
"Oh. Sorry." Mori stretched over, plucking up the silver glasses from the ground by one earpiece, checking to make sure they weren't broken, before handing them off to Onuma. "I think they're okay. God, I really am sorry."

For a moment, Onuma closed his eyes, letting his hand rest on his chest, parceling out words between cautious breaths.  
"Least we know you can....direct your chi." He tensed and tried to breathe deeper, and Mori could tell he was focusing away from the pain. But apparently he wasn't too hurt for a crooked smile. "Bet half the damn forest knows, now."

"What? How's that?"  
"Hear anything? Birds? Flies? That chipmunk....in the juniper?"  
"Chipmunk?" Now Mori was lost.  
"You missed him. Raising a fuss, earlier."

Mori looked around the clearing, and for the first time noted how still and eerily silent it suddenly was. The summer noise of birds and insects was such a constant that he always took it for granted. But now, all that usual hum had ceased entirely.  
"Did I do that?"  
"Given practice, you could....run a man straight through. With that staff."

Mori glanced sharply at Onuma, appalled. That was the last thing he ever wanted to do. But Onuma only looked back at him levelly, his hand with the glasses still resting on his chest.  
"It was a good first try. But you forgot one thing."

"What--." Mori started to ask, but a breeze whispered past his cheek, and quicker than a blink, something pricked the skin of his throat. He hadn't even seen Onuma draw the knife; it materialized from nowhere, and now Onuma held it to his jugular, without so much as a ripple in his calm regard.

"Never assume your opponent is helpless. Never assume your enemy is....as honorable as you. I might not be in any shape to fight. But I still could've killed you....ten different ways by now. Don't be stupid."

There was something bizarrely arresting in the feel of the blade pressed to his skin. For a moment, Mori couldn't make himself breathe, and didn't dare swallow against the sudden dryness in his throat. Onuma was still drawing air in shallow sips, and his face was white and set with pain. But his eyes were fixed on Mori's; the strength of will in his gaze was like the heat of an oven, radiating against Mori's skin, and for just a flicker of an instant, an unspeakable, impossibly perverse part of Mori _wondered_.

What would it have been like? What would've happened, if he'd accepted this man's intimate proposal that very first afternoon? It was like passing a half-open door, stealing a quick glimpse into a room; he imagined the heat, the desperate edge to that first time. Onuma pressing him back, perhaps; lithe, unexpectedly strong, and so very skilled....

Except that somehow he understood, he was certain, that they would've ended up exactly where they were now. Knowing very little more or less about one another, trusting each other exactly the same. The only difference would have been a speechless twinge of unspoken regret, forever lingering between them. 

Not because of what they had done with each other. But because it hadn't made any difference to who they were, or their respective solitude. In short, it would never have worked.

Mori was so sure of this, that he found himself looking down at Onuma, almost wishing to apologize, for something that had never actually taken place. Feeling vaguely ashamed for his sheer relief, that it had never happened.

But instead--knowing he'd hesitated too long already--he drew back from the point of Onuma's knife, and the questions dawning in his expression.

"Thank you," he said, averting his gaze, pushing himself to his knees, getting his feet under him. His limbs were leaden; his entire body drained of energy. But he offered Onuma a hand up, since it was the least he could do. "Thank you for instructing me. I won't forget it."

Onuma studied him briefly; tucking his throwing knife back into his sleeve, where it had apparently come from. He squinted at Mori's palm and then reached up and grasped it, pulling in a breath, before letting Mori draw him up to a sitting position.

"Ah--." He winced, squeezing his eyes shut, and then shook his head vigorously. "I'm out of shape. Long time since I took a wallop like that."

Mori could only sigh his apology at this point, watching Onuma gingerly slip his glasses back on. "You can use my bath, if you want. And I have a salve, for your chest."

"Offering your bath greatly decreases the likelihood of getting rid of me, you do know that, right?" Onuma asked, hanging winded and heavy on Mori's arm, after Mori had hauled him upright.

"Where I come from, it's considered bad form to throw friends out after punching holes in them," Mori answered. "Least I can do is give you a bed for the night."

Onuma chuckled weakly. "Good thing I brought wine, then. Because I definitely intend to drink tonight."

**

The bruising on Onuma's chest was even more ghastly than Mori had anticipated. It looked like he'd been kicked by an ox; the swollen purple center was the diameter of a grapefruit on his sternum, spreading out to violet and angry red, up to his collarbone and down to his ribs. Onuma perched on the kitchen stool, borrowed sleeping robe open to his waist, sipping from a teacup full of some gold-colored wine with a faint floral scent and eye-watering potency, while Mori bit his lip, sickened over the damage he'd done.

"Don't look so down about it. I've gotten hit plenty worse before, and God knows I've dealt out worse." He swallowed another sip, and grinned. "Like you wouldn't be sporting one hell of a goose egg, if I'd hit you with that last rock."

"I never struck anyone harder than I meant to, before," Mori answered. "I was taught that losing control, under any circumstance, is a disgrace."

"You see how it's all dispersed, like that?" Onuma pointed around the reddened edges of the bruise. "That's where your energy broke up. You put more than you needed to, into that hit, but it wasn't focused. You should work on that."

Mori stared. He didn't know what baffled him more; Onuma's total unconcern that Mori's lack of control had caused him needless injury, or the man's assumption that Mori should persist in this dangerous practice. "I can't just work this out by trial and error. I could kill someone. I could've killed _you_." 

All traces of a smile faded from Onuma's eyes, as he regarded Mori over the rim of his cup. He drank deeply, set the cup aside, and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

"In the twelve years I studied, three-fourths of the students at my dojo were killed in training. The ones who survived, were deemed acceptable. That's the difference, between you and I."

And what sort of barbarians, Mori wanted to ask, had Onuma trained under? He refrained, because he realized that his own experience had been extraordinarily sheltered. He was protected by everyone's expectation of him. Protected by the peaceful tenets of the sect he was raised by, not to mention the benevolent rule of the province itself.

Other people, in other places, were not so fortunate. He should be grateful that Onuma was pointing this out to him without scorn or resentment. But there was still one fundamental problem, here.

"I don't think I could kill, and live with myself." He stared down at his hands, cupping the jar of salve he'd brought out. "I've thought--in theory--that I might have to, some day. But....even if it weren't against my principles. I know that people don't always go away, just because someone kills them."

For a long, uncomfortable spell, Onuma was quiet, and Mori was sure the man was scrutinizing him again.

"I can see where that would be an obstacle," he eventually said, in a musing tone. "Say, is it true, that people who were killed by others, are the ones who most often turn up as ghosts?"  
"They're most often the dangerous ghosts," Mori answered. "The kind that hurt the living, and cause trouble. When people die angry, it just gets worse, as time goes on."

"Huh." Onuma reached past his cup, to the cup he'd poured for Mori, but which Mori had yet to touch. "Here," he said, handing it over. "It's obvious you need a drink. And I don't like drinking alone, unless I am alone."

Mori hesitated, thinking that Onuma had been drinking plenty for both of them, and would surely pay the price for it tomorrow. But then he thought about what he'd learned today, what he'd done to Onuma, and what he might have to do to someone else, if his forebodings ever came to anything. 

He'd been enabled to defeat Onuma, by focusing on saving Arai. But now he knew that in reality, if he had to save Arai by those means, and ended up killing someone, he could only pray that Arai would never know. It would be a transgression that Mori could never erase from his own conscience, and Arai would never stop blaming himself for that.

So he accepted the cup, tipped it back, swallowed the flaring burn down, unable to repress a shudder. "You're the only person I know, who carries around lacquer stripper in a wine bottle," he complained, and then sipped some more, while Onuma gave a raspy chuckle.

"Stronger it is, the less I have to carry around. Good for starting bonfires, too."  
He glanced down at his chest. "So you ready with that salve? I think I'm pretty well anesthetized by now."

**

"So what was that thing, earlier," asked Mori, half-leaning against the low table in the front room, his now pleasantly muzzy head propped on his fist. "When all the birds and things went quiet, what was that?"

"Animals are sensitive to energy," said Onuma, from his reclining spot on the floor, on the other side of the table. "Like I showed you, your chi dispersed when you hit me."

"And they really felt it? That far away?"  
"You underestimate yourself, Morinozuka. D'you know animals can sense earthquakes, days before they happen? Any person's focused energy is stronger than that."

Mori pictured how Onuma had been thrown backward when the staff struck him, and tried to imagine how that force had gotten from there, to the treeline.

"Archers..." He spoke as the thought struck him randomly, a memory of the temple at New Year's.

"Archers what?"  
"Always thought it was just a superstition. When archers loose their arrows, their chi disperses bad spirits. I never saw anything disperse, though."

"Maybe you never saw a bow properly released. Or maybe there was nothing to disperse."  
"Hm," Mori said, staring into the flickering lamplight, exhausted and maybe a little more than slightly drunk. He'd had an idea about the archers, but it was slipping past him. "Y'don't have to sleep on the floor, y'know. Got that futon over there."

"I'll get to it," Onuma yawned. "Go on to bed, if you're tired."  
And oh, Mori was so tired. He could sleep face-first on this table, and not even care. But some reluctance was keeping him here. Not manners especially, though it wouldn't be good, if Onuma did fall asleep on the floor. 

It was more....something to do with the lamplight. And quiet conversation at the end of a long day. He and Arai used to talk after dinner, feeding sticks to the wood stove, staying up until aimless talk faded off into increasingly sleepy silences, punctuated by muffled yawns. 

He had forgotten how comforting that had been; how quietly, perfectly right he had felt on those nights. Or perhaps he'd deliberately not remembered it. Because facing incurable homesickness, all alone in his own front room, was too much even for him.

"Onuma?"  
From the floor came a shallow sigh. "Hnn?"  
"Thanks for coming here. Sorry I hurt you. But thanks."

There was a pause, before he heard a breath of soft laughter, trailing off into quiet. And then, "You still holding up all right?"

Mori was obscurely grateful that Onuma had the sense to leave the question open-ended. He didn't need to ask if Mori was holding up alone, or without Arai, or whatever. Which was good, because the more indirect the query, the better chance Mori had of answering it honestly.

"Yeah." As long as he was getting up in the morning, as long as he was still tending his crops and the orchard. As long as he could still make it down to the village, hoping for a letter, or sending one off, then he was still holding up.

"Good," said Onuma, yawning. "That's good to hear."


	35. Chapter 35

The last week in June brought no letter from Arai. Nor did the week after, or the week after that. Mori wrote two letters; one about fixing the windlass roof on his well, and another describing how he'd chopped down that dead pear tree finally, and the ensuing challenge of getting it out of the orchard without damaging the rest of the trees.

The last letter he'd received from Arai mentioned a promotion of sorts, from what Mori could gather.  
 _Ikasu-san says I do good with flower bed. They grow more healthy than he sees before. Kureko-sama sees flower bed too. Now I move to hot house, and watch Kureko-sama flower every day...._

Maybe it was fatigue, or loneliness, or even some latent irrational jealousy he couldn't own up to. But after two days of concerted effort, Mori finally gave up pretending to himself, that he was happy at the news. This was precisely what he would have hoped for Arai; that his talents be recognized, and finally count in his favor. No doubt it would do wonders for his confidence, and his independence.

But Mori was nearly overtaken by gloom and indefinable dread at the news, and however much he castigated himself for ingratitude, ambivalence (and yes, admit it, hideous envy of every single person on that estate who got to see Arai every day and didn't even appreciate their incredible fortune)....it didn't help.

And then that was the last letter. Mori's gloom turned to worry, as two weeks passed, and from worry to bone-freezing fear when he visited Hito-sama, who still got letters from his granddaughter, saying all was well, everyone was very busy.

Which Mori's addled, over-burdened, achingly lonesome heart could only take to mean one thing. Arai had found his place. He didn't need Mori's support anymore. At last, others had recognized in him what only Mori had seen at first, and finally he was accepted, as he'd wanted so much to be.

From that point, the world sank into gray for Mori. It was the height of summer, and everywhere he went he felt surrounded in a dense, muffled, colorless fog. Once in awhile, he'd surface from it, find himself in the garden with a basket full of green beans, and only the vaguest memory of having picked them. Or sitting on his porch, with a tepid cup of tea in his hand, and the full summer moon high in the sky.

**

One week faded aimlessly into the next, and on a warm still night in mid-July, Mori dreamt he was filling up the root cellar. He'd just set down a basket overflowing with melons, ripe and round, and dragged open the cellar door, only to find that it was already too full, with vegetables and fruits packed almost to the door.

He'd done it again. Just like when the fox had been gone for so long that Mori's last hope finally drained to dead nothing, and taking his goods to market was so pointless, so grievously tiresome, that all he wanted do was stow his harvest in the cellar, and go lie down for awhile. 

He sighed heavily, looking at that huge basket of melons. What was he supposed to do with them all?

"You really think this is the time to be moping?"   
He looked up to see a man in work clothes and a wide-brimmed straw hat, leaning on his shovel. The sun shone behind him, glaring into Mori's eyes, and he raised a hand to shield them.  
"I beg your pardon?"

"It won't do, to lose your resolve now. This place has a promise to keep, but it can't, if you don't do your part."  
"I don't understand." Mori squinted into the bright sun, trying to make out the man's features, but all he saw was the shadow of a smile. "What's my part?"

"You never thought this place came for free, did you? You knew it belonged to someone, and you took good care of it. But time's getting short, now. He needs to come back, and claim what's his."

"Who? Who's supposed to come?" Mori asked, tensing as he realized who he must be speaking to; that this was the man he'd wondered about for years, and suddenly he was all but choking on all the hundreds of questions he'd wanted to ask. 

_What is this place? Why is it here? How did you make it last so long, and why, above all, doesn't anyone know you?_

"He's all that's left of a story no one remembers," the man answered, and Mori had never heard so much sorrow, cradled in so few words. "If you dig hard, you might still find it. But the names are all passed away."

Mori glanced automatically, to the shovel the man held. It was the very same shovel he used all the time, but this--he knew--was its first owner. And then the rest of it suddenly hit him, like a bucketful of freezing water. 

A story no one remembered. Names that passed away.

"Oh God," he blurted, wide-eyed with shock. He struggled to rise, to get up and start doing something, because everything, it made so much sense and there wasn't a moment to lose, and he was squinting against the bright sun, throwing off his clinging bedclothes, half-stumbling across the wooden floor with his eyes barely focused.

He hit the door frame with his shoulder, bounced off, swearing loudly, but the pain brought him fully awake, made him realize he'd only dreamed he was talking to a dead man out by the root cellar, and now he was back in the waking world, and he needed to slow down before he broke his neck, and _think._

First he told himself sternly, it was a dream. And to go haring off anywhere on the basis of a dream was a sure sign of an unhinged mind. He was unhappy, strained, and that alone was cause enough for strange dreams.

It was difficult to reason with himself though, picturing that shovel in the man's hand. And that feeling of urgency, that he had to start digging, or doing something right now.

But dig where? And for what? He'd come lurching up out of sleep so fast, he hadn't even thought to ask, because all he could think was, _This is his, it was all meant for him, he should've lived here all along._

Which was surely wishful madness on Mori's part. How could this property be Arai's, if no one in the village knew him? And how could the original owner even know about Arai, if the man had been dead for decades before Arai was even born?

Mori fumbled through his morning routine, trying to draw some sense from the dream, as he washed, dressed, and made tea, pacing the kitchen while the water boiled.

No one knew Arai's name, because he'd lost it along with his memories, in some terrible, unspeakably dark place. Could it be, that his whole family was lost in the same way? Leaving him the last of his line? But then why had no one missed the family? Why had no one, in over a year, attempted to track them down? One boy gone missing was odd enough, but a whole family?

By that point, Mori had taken his pacing to the front room, burning his mouth on his scalding tea and scarcely noticing, trying to think whether he'd ever seen anything, even the least sign that this place had been meant for someone particular.

There was that woman's ghost, dressed in old formal robes. Her comb, with the pear blossoms, Mori had drawn up from the well. There was that metal box, at the back of the orchard, buried under Mizuko-chan's stones....

He skidded to a halt, mouth agape. Mizuko-chan had to know. She remembered the person who'd borrowed those stones. Surely she would know why that box was hidden.

He had stopped near the tokonoma, mind racing, tearing through memories and missing pieces he'd been collecting for years, and never thought to assemble into a whole, before. But in an instant, his frantic thoughts all crashed to a halt, as he actually focused on what was in front of him.

The scroll, in the tokonoma, untouched since the night he'd hung it for the ghost.

It was blank.

He was three steps toward the front door, before his teacup hit the rug.

**

"Mizuko-chan! Mizuko-chan!" Mori raced through the orchard, ducking branches and jumping the rows, yelling at the top of his voice. His bare feet splashed through the water rushing in, splattering his pants, and that much water wasn't usual, and if he stepped on a sharp rock he would sorely regret it, but he couldn't stop for any of that now.

He sprinted past the stump of the dead pear tree, abandoned when he'd broken his spade trying to break the roots loose. He'd meant to bring out the pickaxe today, but that would have to wait.

"Mizuko-chan, something's happened, I have to talk to you." He slowed down at the irrigation inlet, catching his breath, looking around frantically. The stream was swollen and flooding into the orchard; far too much water for a week with no rain.

"Mizuko-chan, please, if you can hear me, please come!"

"If you're looking for that stone, it doesn't work anymore." The water spirit had surfaced in the center of the flood, slowly drifting nearer, and Mori sagged with relief.

"No, I'm not looking for a stone, but I need to ask you about--." He broke off, as her words actually caught up to him. "Wait. What stone?"  
"The one that person was keeping. They threw it away, and it came back to me."

Mori made it two steps backward on legs he couldn't even feel, and sat down hard enough to rattle his teeth. "You--you mean Arai? The person who stayed here?"  
"It broke. Too much current. It's no use anymore."

He didn't want to imagine what that could mean. He absolutely did not want to know. But if he was going to lose his mind, he should at least be certain, first. "C-can I see? Do you have it?"

Mizuko-chan drew closer to the bank, holding out one long arm, and uncurling her palm. Mori took a breath, closed his eyes tight for a second, and then leaned in to look.

Arai's stone was indeed cracked in half, fractured down the center of the white star-shaped flare, and looking at it, Mori felt himself cracking as well. "Where--do you know where he lost it?"

"It came a long way. The other spirit brought it to the bridge, so it could come back here."  
"It came back in one piece?" Mori asked, confused.  
"Two pieces," was the answer, forcing Mori to push aside his mounting queasy fear and decide whether understanding how two pieces of a stone could make it so far down the river together, was really all that crucial.

"Are you sure he was the person who threw it away, and not someone else?" Feeling somehow sure that Arai would have saved the pieces, even if the stone was broken, because Mizuko-chan had told him, and Mori had told him, to keep it safe.

"I didn't see. The other water spirit didn't see."  
Mori pulled his knees up, wrapping his arms around them, doing all he could to keep himself together, and staring at the broken pieces as if his life depended on it. "Where did the other spirit find it?"

"Where the water leaves the river, and goes still, and things grow. Her water stops there."

A field? Mori wondered. An orchard? A rice paddy? "If I talk to her, could she show me?"

"She stays at the bridge now. The river has too many shadows, by that place."  
Mori bit his lip until his eyes watered, trying to focus, and shut out the dread of his strange dreams. Because he knew, that the bridge Mizuko-chan mentioned was not the village bridge. 

_Remember how you got here,_ that golden-eyed water spirit had said in his dream. Was this where Arai had been all along? In a place where a broken, treacherous bridge spanned a river full of shadows and ghosts' voices? Or was that where Mori was meant to find him?

Either way, he would have to be prepared. And so he steeled himself for the last, most difficult question.  
"If this stone broke, does that mean my friend is hurt?"

"It wasn't strong enough, for that place. And now that person has nothing."  
Mori jerked a stiff nod. That was all he needed to know. He would find this place, and find Arai, and get him out of there.

"Can I ask a very great favor of you?" he said. "Could you go to the river, and tell Onuma-san I'll be coming to ask his help?" Because he had no plan, no idea how to accomplish this task, and Onuma would doubtless think him insane. Which he most likely was. But one way or another, Onuma would help.

**

"Let me see if I have this straight," said Onuma, dumping out his travel pack, and sorting the contents on his table. "You don't get a letter from the kid for a month. You have a dream about the fellow who owned your property, leading you to think it all belongs to the kid. Even though there's no records, no will, and nobody remembers any names." He paused to uncork a small bottle and sniff the contents, then frowned and set it aside.

"Then Mizuko-chan shows up, with a broken stone she gave the kid, which somebody threw away, way the hell upriver. And now you're convinced he's in a bad way, and you want to go get him. How'm I doing so far?"

"There's no logic to any of it. I realize that," Mori sighed. "I have no evidence, and it's entirely likely that he's fine and I'm behaving like a madman over nothing."

"Well. As long as you realize it." Onuma glanced up with a sharp grin. "But look, if you're worried, why not rent a cart, or just a horse, and go out there for a visit?"

_Because we might have to escape quickly. Because I dreamed about the river, and that bridge, twice. Because the water spirit said to remember how I got there._  
"It's faster, by river, isn't it?" asked Mori, grasping for the least ridiculous-sounding straw at hand. "By cart, it's almost a whole day."

"Coming back it is, sure. I've never hiked up that far, in one go. Carrying the canoe might make it even."  
Mori was on the verge of asking why they'd carry the canoe, before recalling that the outbound trip was upriver, naturally. And then he had to lean back and press his hands to his eyes, because this was taking too long, and he needed to be there now, and he was terrible at logistics.

"Lucky thing I've got that canoe stowed at the village," Onuma went on, thoughtfully. "We could hike down and split up there. You go on to see how the kid's doing, and I cart the boat up by road. We decide on somewhere to meet up, so if you need the boat you've got it. If not, you've got a ride back."

Mori looked at Onuma over the tops of his fingers with something very like worship. "You're a genius. That's a lot of trouble for you, but it's brilliant."  
"It's nice to think I can use my talents for good." Onuma looked down at his pack with a tight, lemon-biting smile. "At least I hope this is good. Hate to think I'm blowing off the Obon festival for nothing."

"Obon." The festival of the dead. That nightmare, before Arai had left. Mori had walked through the village at Obon. And he'd seen Onuma, by the stream. "Bring that lure," he said suddenly, and Onuma blinked at him.

"Which one? I've got dozens."  
"The one the ghost gave you, when we saw the kinmedai...." Mori had to stop and wrack his memory a moment. "The priest. Yamato-sama."

Onuma's eyebrows went up. "My word. I forgot I even had that."

Mori shivered at the icy trickle of dread down his spine. He wondered if fortune tellers felt like this often: like their reason was breaking into pieces, as the fate they'd foreseen slipped into place, bit by bit, implacable as the rainfall that fed a swelling flood.

"Yeah," he mumbled. "Thought you might have." He had to duck the piercing gaze Onuma focused on him, hoping like hell the man wouldn't ask him how _he'd_ remembered.

But all Onuma said, after a weighty silence, was, "You really think we'll need that kind of luck?"  
And Mori couldn't know for sure. All he had to go on, in terms of real, tangible hints, was a blank scroll and a broken stone, and now the man across the table quoting himself from Mori's own dreams.

"I think..." Mori began carefully. "You know how you can feel, when it's about to storm? Or when someone's coming up behind you?"'  
"Yeah."

"The reason I took up my staff, and started practicing again. The reason I asked you to teach me, was because of a feeling like that. You said you wondered, what the place where I live, was for. Why it's lasted so long...." He looked up at Onuma, who'd gone still, listening with his whole attention.

"I think we're going to find out soon. That's what I feel like."

Onuma watched him with absolute seriousness. Studying, thinking. "Okay. I'm not trying to argue. But there's something I'm not getting. If something's about to break, with that place of yours, how does taking a two-day trip to get the kid, fit into that?"

"Mizuko-chan told him he needed that stone, or he wouldn't last. She said something broke the stone, where he is now. I think if I don't take him from there, he'll die. If he hasn't already." Mori took in a shuddering breath at his own words, knowing he had to be able to say it out loud, knowing he would have to be stronger than this, for what was to come. "And I think the place where I live, has lasted all these years for him. So he could have it."

"Because the person in your dream said so."  
"Yes," Mori said honestly.

Onuma surveyed the table, and his pack, and all the items scattered about. "All right. Let me load this up, and we'll hit the trail."

Mori's desperate impatience made every second seem like it stretched out to the screaming point, but he had to admit that Onuma packed like a well-regimented whirlwind. First-aid kit with extra bandages, matches, tea, rice, dried beef. A relatively modest bottle of wine, a tin cup and a wooden bowl Mori had given him, two throwing knives up his sleeves and one in his boot ("Want one?" he asked Mori, who politely declined). He dug through the chest by the window, and found the silver minnow lure, bundled in a square of cotton, and with a few deft twists with a length of twine, hung it around his neck, under his shirt.

He filled his water canteen from the jug in the kitchen, and then after a moment's thought, dumped it back, and dug in his cupboard for a brown jug that Mori recognized from New Year's. "Sorry I never gave this back to you," he grinned, re-filling the canteen. "Kept thinking I should save Mizuko-chan's water for a special occasion."

And that, Mori realized, was why he'd trusted Onuma with this problem. Why he'd offered the water to the man in the first place. Why he knew he was profoundly fortunate, to ever have met him.  
"It's yours," he answered. "It's the least of what I owe you."

**

It was still cool morning, when they set off up the riverbank, each with their packs, and Mori with his pear-wood staff. They kept a swift steady pace, side by side, Onuma keeping an eye on the level and shape of the river, as they went along.

"Mizuko-chan's running it down," he pointed out to Mori. "She says we're due for a flood before long, so she's been draining out the nearby reservoirs, so we don't all drown."

"I wondered why the irrigation ran so hard this morning," Mori remembered. "Meant to ask her about that. When is the flood supposed to come?"

"Dunno," Onuma frowned. "Usually she's pretty precise, down to a day or two. But she just said a lot of water was coming."

Mori turned a skeptical look up to the sky, though he knew hard rains could come any time they felt like it. "Huh."  
"Yeah. Hope it doesn't start 'til we get back, at least."

**

"...so the first thing I found was her comb, in the well bucket," Mori was explaining, about how he'd first come to the cottage. "And that's when she gave me the scroll."

"The scroll in your tokonoma?"  
"Yeah. It was blank when I got it, and this morning it was blank."

"How come you never told me this?"  
"Because you would've thought I was a crackpot for years, instead of just starting today."

Onuma burst into hard laughter, eventually slowing down to wipe his eyes under his glasses. "Sorry, sorry. So was that all?"  
"No, the next night she led me off to the back of the orchard, and that's when I moved all those stones, that drained the pool the first time."

"In the middle of the night?"  
"Yeah, and I found a box. You know the canisters in the root cellar? It was like that, but smaller. I got it open and gave it to her, and she gave me the key to the root cellar."

"What was in the box?"  
"It wasn't mine," Mori shrugged. "I didn't really look. Some silk, I think."  
"So how'd you get all that underbrush cleared out around the house? That's what I always wanted to know."

"There was a storm, or something, after I hung the scroll. It all blew away that night."  
"But wait, wait a minute. You hung the scroll the third night, yeah?"  
"Hm."  
"Then how'd you find the root cellar? Nobody ever knew about that."  
"I tripped over it, the morning after all the underbrush blew away."

"But....then what did you eat for three days?"  
"Roots. Pears. Chestnuts. More pears. It was like fasting. Only with pears."

"And roots and nuts," Onuma chuckled, shaking his head. "No wonder you survived that foolishness with Mizuko-chan's rope. Hell, I'd be tempted to think you're unkillable."

For the first time since they'd started walking, Mori broke pace, slowing almost to a stop.   
"I wouldn't go that far." Of all the times to jinx his inexplicable, bizarre fortune, or tempt whatever fate had brought him to this point, Mori simply couldn't afford for it to be now.

Once upon a time, he'd been ready to die. He had passed out of his life, taken his last look at the world, and embraced his end. And then a stranger had come, and stopped the world, and told him to go live.

She'd stopped the river, the sunrise, all the waking sounds of the city. She'd stopped the guards at the city gate; Mori would never forget that sight, and the heart-pounding experience of first creeping, then running as hard as he could, past those men, frozen like statues in uniform. Beyond the gate, the whole countryside had been still as an ink drawing. The animals unblinking, some caught mid-step in the fields; the grasses bent by a breeze that wasn't blowing.

Whoever--whatever--that entity was, it was her power he saw, capturing a single instant of time, and holding it over the whole land. Giving Mori enough of a head start to escape any pursuers, no matter how determined.

In all the years since, he had never questioned that act. Had done his best to think as little as possible about it. Put it out of his mind, whenever it occurred it to him. Because as best he could gather, that person had exercised a phenomenal power on his behalf, solely on a whim. And he could never help thinking that someone with that sort of power, could very well snatch back their gift anytime they chose.

He should have died, the day he climbed the bridge railing. He could too easily have died at any point in those first days at the cottage property. And when the binding power in Mizuko-chan's rope had seized his very heart, choking him from the inside, Mori was still not convinced he was entirely alive that whole time. Maybe he'd fallen into a hallucination of some sort, or maybe he'd been on the verge of passing beyond this world, before Onuma had yanked him back.

At any rate, he didn't care to look at any of these incidents too closely, lest he discover it was all nothing but phenomenal dumb luck. Because he had something now, that he didn't have back when he was sixteen and wrongly accused, bidding farewell to his life on the railing of a high, high bridge.

He had discovered desire, for one thing, along with a stronger reason to live than he could possibly have imagined, back then. He had too much to lose now, to take any chances. Even with words spoken offhand.

"I've been lucky," he told Onuma. "But from now on, I think I'd rather not have to be. Luck doesn't last."

"Glad to see you're catching on, with that." Onuma looked from Mori, to the riverbank path, curving out before them. "To be honest, I was getting used to the idea of having you in the neighborhood awhile longer." With the slightest hint of a smile, he added, "You and the kid, both."


	36. Chapter 36

It was just around noon, when they reached the last bend in the river before the village bridge, and where Onuma--for reasons known only to himself--asked Mori to pause and rest a moment.

He picked a shady spot up the bank, and Mori followed and sat with him, both men pulling out their water canteens for a drink. Though it wasn't yet hot, the cool of the morning was definitely gone, and the cicadas were in full buzz in the nearby trees.

"Don't guess you'd want to come up, grab a bite with me in town before moving on?" Onuma asked.  
Mori shook his head. He was too anxious to be hungry, and still had too many hours of walking ahead of him. "Thanks, but I'd rather keep moving."

"I realize it's an odd time to ask this, but are you sure where you're going?"

"I think there's a bridge near the property. Mizuko-chan said the other water spirit is staying there. I'll look for her. Or just follow the irrigation canals until I see the place."

Onuma looked off upriver, brows pulling together in concentration. "Seems I recall an old footbridge. Way the hell off behind the main estate. Guess if you wanted to avoid meeting the landlord, that's as good a way in as any." Then he turned his concentrated look on Mori. "Chances of you making it there before dark are slim to none, though. I would strongly suggest you find a safe spot to camp, around sunset."

He'd been trying not to think about the hours lost to nightfall, as though if he simply didn't consider the obstacle, it might not arise. If he could just make it by sunset, and find the hothouse Arai had written about, that was all the opportunity he needed.

But just from the way Onuma was looking at him, Mori could tell that plan most likely wouldn't happen, and he couldn't help clenching his jaw in frustration.

"Listen, Morinozuka. Much as I'd love to believe you're hauling off on this jaunt because that kid has finally turned your brain funny---." He held up a hand to forestall Mori's imminent denial, "--and don't get mad, that's the best-case scenario, here. I'd like that a lot, but the thing is, I don't believe it. What I do believe are your instincts. That's why I'm here right now, all right?"

Mori tamped down on his chafing impatience and the incipient madness which had been eating at him since the moment he woke up that morning. Onuma was objective, cool-headed, and extremely intelligent, and Mori very much needed that on his side, he knew. But he wasn't sure he could stand the thought of camping in the forest, only an hour or so away from Arai, and endure through a whole night, fearing the worst for him.

"I've found people in that part of the woods, in the most awful shape you can imagine. It is not a nice place, and it is not at all forgiving of mistakes. If you're smart, you'll camp as close as you can to the river, and don't leave your spot after sundown for anything. As a matter of fact, here."

He dug in his knapsack briefly, and pulled out a white cloth bag, cinched and knotted at the top with a red cord. Weighed it in his palm a second, then handed it over to Mori. "Salt. Make a ring around your campsite with it, and stay put."

"I brought salt." Mori tried to offer it back, but Onuma shook his head.   
"Save the rest for tomorrow, then. I'll grab some more on my way out of town.

It took a bit to filter through the noise of Mori's urgency, but he soon came to realize that Onuma was as nervous as he'd ever seen him. If he didn't know the man as well as he did, he might never have noticed it. But once he saw it, it momentarily pushed all his other preoccupations aside.

"You really are worried about this."

Onuma regarded him without a trace of levity, or the casual good humor that was as much a part of him as his keen dark eyes and silver spectacles. "If I didn't know what sort of things you've faced down before....if I didn't know how ungodly stubborn you are, I'd tell you not to go up there alone. And don't think I'm trying to scare you off now, because I honestly wouldn't waste my breath on that. But having all that said..." He glanced upriver again, tense and distrustful. "I believe that place will test even your considerable nerve. I've seen you shrug off a lot of things, but I'm still going to tell you: whatever happens in those woods, whatever you think you hear or see. Don't panic and do something stupid."

And Mori listened, he took the man's words to heart, and nodded solemnly. "All right. I'll remember that."

He was even further sobered, when Onuma reached over and held out his hand to shake. "I'll get down there as quick as I can. Barring accidents, I should make that bridge, by midmorning. On your way past, leave something there, so I know you made it."

Mori held up the bag of salt. "I'll leave this. On the other side of the bridge." As though sealing a pact, he leaned forward and clasped Onuma's palm. "One way or another, I'll come back and meet you there."

"See that you do," said Onuma.

**

After seeing Onuma off across the bridge into the village, Mori set off at a swift march, that soon picked up to a steady jog. Being unfamiliar with this part of the river, he chose to stick close to the bank, occasionally slowing down to pick his way along the edge of the running water, or climbing up to dry ground where the bank dropped straight down to rocks and rapids.

Close to an hour past the village, the land opened out to flat meadow, and here Mori was able to stretch his legs and run, drawing the warm air, grassy and marsh-scented, deep into his lungs, with his knapsack jouncing against his shoulders. He sped across the open ground, leaping over furrows and gopher holes, dodging high rocks and low brush, eying the angle of the sun and the dark streak of the tree line far ahead, where the forest closed in again.

He pushed himself faster than was probably wise, fully aware that a bad fall or a turned ankle could seriously jeopardize his quest. It was a risk he felt he had to take, making the most of the daylight and his restless energy, getting as close as he could, as fast as he could, to his goal.

It didn't escape his notice, that all the endurance training he'd done for the last several months was proving its worth now. He would need to rest a minute or two once he reached the forest again, but then he was confident he could keep up a rapid march for as many hours as he needed to. 

It had been well worth the effort he had put in every day, forcing himself to get out and exercise; even on those days when his spirits felt too heavy for his body to carry around. On those days, it had nothing to do with prescience, or even intuition. It was simply an act of self-preservation; he could move or he could succumb to hopeless inertia, and having become too well-versed in the latter after the fox had left, continuing to move had seemed the only viable option.

But even now, he sternly reminded himself that conditioning wasn't everything. There was no way to know what he would meet at the end of this path, or what extremity might arise on the way, to test his mettle. He may well discover that his instincts had been led astray by mere paranoia, fed by longing and loneliness. Or he could find that his dreams and intuitions had been right, but that he'd acted on them much too late.

There was no way to know, and no way to prepare himself for every possible outcome. The best he could do was heed Onuma's advice; stay sharp, don't panic, and don't do anything stupid.

**

Nearing the tree line at last, he slowed to a jog, and then gradually to a rapid walk, eventually stopping in a shady spot where the woods were still sparse, and settling on a flat gray boulder, to catch his breath.

Though it wasn't terribly distant, this part of the forest was far different in character, from the woods around the village, and where he lived. There, it was primarily tall evergreens all around, with occasional bunches of aspen and beech, particularly toward the west. Looking around now, Mori saw an abundance of oak trees, a few cypress further in, and a couple of willows, going down along the river bank.

He swallowed some water, and dug around in his pack for the fruit and cold rice he'd brought. He still wasn't particularly hungry, but was smart enough to recognize that his body would need fuel, whether he felt like he wanted it or not. So he nibbled on some dried fruit, a few nuts, all the while studying the territory around him.

It was hard to say, at the open edge of this forest, whether it was welcoming, or forbidding, or had any distinctive character at all. To Mori, it was simply unfamiliar, and without knowing the land, he had no way to ascertain it. From where he sat, he could sense no shadows that didn't belong; the temperature was comfortable, and though the only sounds he heard were the ever-present rush of the river, and the occasional susurration of the tree tops, this was normal enough. If there were birds and other animals about, his intrusion would have had hushed them for the time being. If he sat still long enough--which he wasn't inclined to do--it was more than likely the forest creatures would eventually resume their usual activity.

Soon enough, the powerful impulse to keep moving got him up again, walking quickly past the tangled bushes, bunched down the line of the riverbank. Increasingly, he was finding areas where the river had cut deeper into the land, forcing him to walk along the higher banks, skirting dense undergrowth, and in some cases keeping track of the river's course by sound alone.

Gradually, the trees thickened, and the hard dirt from the open meadows turned to spongy leaf litter and loose soil. Now and then, he thought he spotted faint trails leading off between columns of tree trunks, and wondered if they were made specifically to reach the river. And if so, from where? He saw no signs of human habitation anywhere he passed. No boats, no bridges, and not so much as a footprint of any other travelers. It seemed that at least in terms of population density, this forest was more or less the same as where he lived.

**

It was hard to say when the forest became noticeably darker. Mori had been anxiously gauging his progress against the sun all day, and at some point--what felt like three hours or so since his last break--realized he'd lost track of time. The forest canopy had been too dense for some while, to get any accurate idea of the sun's position; he hiked along in a shadowy twilight, following the sound and occasional sight of the river, vaguely registering the land features around him.

It wasn't until a breath of cool air wafting up from the river actually raised goose bumps on his arms, that he noted the dimness around him. It shook him from the trancelike monotony of endless hiking, making him stop for a moment, and really take stock of his surroundings. He hadn't spotted anything that could remotely be called a clearing in quite some time; just a density of neverending tree trunks; medium sized to massive, with varying space in between. A great many of the trees--most of them cypress by now--had curly gray moss hanging down from the branches, reminding him of thick dusty cobwebs in a long-abandoned house.

In fact, the whole area had a decided air of abandonment about it, in the chill, musty-smelling air and the sluggish flow of the river. Only three times since he'd entered the woods, had he heard a bird call. Each time, it echoed from a long way off, and no other bird returned the call.

It wasn't hard to see why Onuma had cautioned him about these woods. Though he hadn't sensed any particular menace, or come upon any of those strange anomalous spots or disappearing paths he'd seen closer to home, Mori could easily believe in the possibility of lurking mysteries, somewhere behind the cover of the trees and dense brush. Assuming there were any paths in this area--he hadn't spotted any in quite awhile--he could imagine a traveler unaccustomed to strangeness becoming deeply unsettled if they happened to lose that path.

As he walked on, he began scanning the trees west of the river, seeking glimpses of the sky. From what little he could see, it still looked like blue, peeking through the heavy, drooping branches. There was still light, but he had only the vaguest idea of the sun's position. Assuming it was three hours since he'd entered the forest, that made it around five hours since he'd left Onuma at the village bridge. Giving him another three or four hours, before nightfall.

According to Onuma's best guess, the cart road from the village to the estate could be driven in about fifteen hours. To reach the very back of the property by river, he had thought might take twelve or thirteen hours. However, he'd warned, the estate was said to be huge, and there was no way to know how long a trek it was from the furthest back field, to the main house itself.

Mori unconsciously picked up his pace, calculating that if it were, say, five o'clock now, and he ran out of daylight around nine, then that would put him two or three hours short of the estate tonight. If he took off at first light, he could be on the property by eight, if he hurried.

Three hours short. He knew he wouldn't get a moment's rest all night, thinking about that. Even without Onuma's warning of dire things in these woods after dark, Mori knew it would be suicidal foolishness to try navigating this terrain through the night. But that didn't mean he wasn't tempted to devise some way to accomplish it. 

If only he had some pitch, he could make a torch. If he hadn't gone tearing out of the cottage after a frenzy of packing, he might have thought to bring along a lantern. Though Onuma probably would've gotten it away from him, somehow.

It was a dangerous, and fairly useless line of thought, but it did help distract him from the ache that had finally started up in his feet and lower back. And who knew that in another few hours, his body wouldn't be begging for a long rest. But his heart and his conscience would have no peace until he saw Arai, and so he persisted in thinking of ways to keep going, through those last few hours.

**

At first, he put it off to fatigue and anxiousness, finally taking their toll on him. With the quiet of the forest, and the abundance of fallen leaves and sticks, it was impossible that he wouldn't hear, if someone were following him.

He heard nothing but his own footfalls, and the gurgling of the river, but from time to time, Mori was convinced that--just for an instant--he felt something. It wasn't so distinct as another person's presence, nothing like the sense he'd had when Onuma had crept up behind him a few weeks ago.

It was nothing but a suggestion of an air current on the back of his neck. A single shift in a shadow, out of the corner of his eye. There, and gone. The first time he'd felt it, he shook it off as imagination. Perhaps an hour later, he felt it--just as fleeting as before--a second time, and paused to take a good hard look around him.

But there was nothing to see, nothing to hear, and even when he closed his eyes and opened all his other senses, all he caught was the brooding, somnolent stillness of the trees around him.

He was beginning to distrust that stillness. It was one thing to walk through a quiet patch of forest for an hour or so, but to go most of the day in the middle of summer, without seeing a single bird or startled chipmunk, or even so much as a butterfly floating past, was unnatural.

He cautiously strode a short distance from the river, toward the thicker trees, scanning the spaces between, peering up into the high foliage. He glimpsed a patch of sky, darker blue than it had been, and knew the day was surely waning. The way he'd come, along the river, trailed off into empty gloom, every bit the same as the path ahead.

Maybe in the absence of anything to hear or see, his senses were inventing things. Maybe he was more fatigued than his muscles and the now-throbbing soles of his feet were letting on.

Fatigue led to all sorts of mistakes, Mori knew. It interfered with one's focus and judgment, and made for poor decisions, generally. It could too easily lead him to sensing things that weren't there, and overlooking the things which were.

With that in mind, he returned to the river, his only guide through this strange landscape, and picked a spot on the bank for another brief rest. He ate a little more, drank some water, and then crossed his legs, propping his elbows on his knees, and rested his face in his hands.

For a few minutes, he tried to think of nothing at all; covering his eyes, feeling his breath go in and out, letting his body relax. He was fairly certain it was coming on sunset, and though he could probably manage another hour's walking before full dark, he would have to be alert and extra careful from here on.

**

The third time he felt that unpleasant tickle at the back of his neck, he was slowed to an amble, and straining to make out the way ahead. The forest was nothing but a mass of shadow now, and only by standing directly at the river's edge and looking up, could he see any light in the sky at all.

This was when Onuma had meant for him to stop, Mori knew. But as long as he could see anything, he couldn't keep himself from moving forward, fretting over the lack of light slowing him down. In truth, he was irked when that feeling of being pursued broke his concentration, and he halted with a deliberate scuffing of his boots in the gravel by the water, planting his walking staff hard, and looking about with a scowl.

"It isn't polite to follow someone half the day, and not introduce yourself," he called loudly. "People get the wrong idea, with that sort of behavior." He held the pose, looking and listening, remembering how--years back, when he'd been traveling--a statement like that on a dark road would either discourage a pursuer bent on waylaying him, or impel them to break cover and take their chances.

But again, to his annoyance this time, all hint of any other presence had vanished. Mori sighed noisily, realizing that the last of the light had left the sky, as well. Staring hard, he could just make out the dark shape of a tree near the water, and shuffled toward it, slipping his pack from his shoulders, and settling himself at the base of the trunk, leaning back against it, laying his staff across his legs.

It was too late to try pulling together a campfire, and by now he was too discouraged to care. All day he'd been hoping against hope, that he might spot that bridge before dark, or see any of the landmarks from his prior dreams. But he had yet to see any dirt road running alongside the river, or a tree covered in fluttering white rags, or a clearing full of flickering stone lanterns. 

Of course dreams were full of images that were only symbols, standing in for things, circumstances, events. Mostly, they were just the random flotsam of the dreamer's imagination. They weren't meant to be taken literally. The tree covered in rags could just represent his own devotion, or prayers he'd offered in his past, or the blossoms of spring, already long fluttered away by now.

But with no idea of what lay ahead, no clear idea where he was, even, he couldn't help sifting through what he remembered of his dreams for any hint that he might be on the right path. He needed some clue that this trek would lead to understanding, something significant; that what he was doing was truly necessary, and not just the snowballing of old grief and the irrational fear of losing Arai the same way he had lost the fox.

As the cool darkness deepened all around, Mori pulled on the sweater he had stuffed in his pack, felt his way down to the slow-moving water to rinse his face and hands, and then crawled back up to his spot by the tree. He felt around in his pack again, withdrawing Onuma's bag of salt, and considered its weight in his hand a moment. This place didn't strike him as particularly threatening--that fleeting sense of being pursued earlier, aside. And salt wouldn't protect him from snakes, nocturnal animals, or a creeping brigand in the woods.

But he couldn't forget his friend's earnest seriousness, handing it over. And it would be disrespectful, to brush off the precaution as though Onuma's opinion lacked any merit. Onuma didn't share his suspicions without reason, and from all Mori had seen so far, his guesses were never wrong. The stones he had tossed at Mori had all missed on the cottage property, and then Onuma had bruised him square between the shoulders, and a few times on his arms and legs during the lesson down by his barge a week later, proving that Mori's protection at home extended no further.

Onuma had been unsparing in his time and energy, teaching Mori how to fight and improve his defense, and when Arai's letters stopped coming, and Mori's will was sapped by growing despondency, Onuma bore down harder, refusing to lose him to lethargy, cajoling and demanding, until Mori rose to the occasion and fought back.

Onuma believed in him. For whatever reason, he had helped Mori, supported him, even when Mori showed up raving and dragged him on an unbelievable jaunt across the countryside. It was only fitting, that Mori believe, in return.

Before loosening the cord on the salt bag, he dug in his pack for his matches, a small candle he'd grabbed from the kitchen, and a stick of incense. He lit the candle, and then the incense, pushing the stick into the soft ground at the base of the tree. Then he took up the salt bag, stood and poured out a wide circle, encompassing the base of the tree, and extending far enough out that he could lie down within comfortably, if he chose.

Once inside the circle, he took out his wooden bowl, and filled it with water from his canteen, thinking if he were making a kekkai, he may as well go ahead and use all the items in his reach.

Finally, having done all he could to secure himself a barrier, he leaned back against the tree trunk again, and tried to make himself rest. Ignoring the temptation of the candle burning nearby--it wouldn't last him an hour, anyway--he shut his eyes, and reached in himself for some calm to help him endure the stillness forced on him.


	37. Chapter 37

He had no idea how long he'd dozed, before the sounds awoke him. His candle had burned to nothing, and he opened his eyes on darkness as thick as a blanket. Somewhere, far off in the woods, he heard the tinkle of a bell, or glass chime, and for a moment held his breath, tensed with alarm.

His legs were stiff and aching, but he held still, conscious of the bark of the tree trunk against his back, and the soft rush of the river, off to his right. With one cold hand, he felt around by his side, curling his fingers around the wood of his staff.

Next came a short, childish giggle, echoing from somewhere in the lightless distance, and Mori's heart kicked a hard thump against his chest. Something cracked--a dry branch, it sounded like, and then came that lilting voice again, calling words he couldn't make out.

There were rustlings, the soft thump of footfalls across the leaf litter. Mori pressed himself back against the tree, eyes wide, breathing slow and shallow, as he strained his ears. The noises came from no particular direction, but as far as he could tell, they weren't coming closer.

He knew full well that no child would be romping around in this darkness, laughing. He could only hope that by keeping perfectly still, he wouldn't rouse the curiosity of whatever was actually out there. If this was what he'd felt pursuing him earlier, it already knew where he was. But if luck still favored him, it wouldn't care.

The far off noise among the trees picked up, as though deep in the blackest part of night, the forest had finally decided to awaken. With no way to see the source of the sounds, Mori's imagination conjured beating wings, dark shapes stalking between the trees; things pouncing and fleeing. Then a snatch of human conversation would reach him, mumbled nonsense, and once, a high, mad cackle of laughter.

It could be ghosts, or strange spirits, dwelling among the trees, he told himself. It could be like this every night, for all he knew. And most likely, it had nothing to do with him at all. 

Rationalizing it this way didn't help the chill in his blood, or assuage the utter helplessness he felt, sitting in blind darkness. But it did help him stay put, within whatever protection the circle of Onuma's salt could offer. Primal, thoughtless instinct wanted him to get up and run from this place, but he was sane enough to realize that doing so could be the death of him.

He thought he had a reasonable handle on himself, until he blinked into the chilly darkness, and realized he was looking at his own boots, sitting right where he'd taken them off earlier, before resting.

First, he snatched them up, and started tugging them on, cursing himself for not having thought of it earlier. And then he realized he could see his boots. It wasn't pitch dark, anymore.

He yanked at the laces with shaking hands, scanning the area desperately, looking for the source of light. It was too early for the sun, and the noisy haunting of the forest would surely stop at daybreak, anyway. If there was light, something was making it. If there was light, then Mori himself could be seen.

He could see his pack, the bowl of water next to it. He could see the white line of salt, distinct against the dark ground. From the woods came a high animal scream, abruptly choked off, and Mori flinched hard.

 _Don't panic. Don't do anything stupid. Don't panic. Don't do anything stupid._ He repeated the words to himself like a mantra, silently, the only coherent thoughts he was capable of. Then he heard a hard rattling of underbrush, and he saw the thicket moving, some five meters off, and before he knew it, he was up on one knee, staff at a ready angle.

They emerged as soft as wisps of smoke from the wood, dense and flickering faintly. Drifting, and then blinking into shape, one moment vaguely human, before swirling into a pale fog. They came with whispering and murmurs, like the trickling of a river, but the words had no more shape than their forms.

Ghosts. A crowd of them. Mori knew by the stinging in his eyes, and the frosty air against his skin. He watched the ground beneath them; no feet to their shape, they hovered above it, but he could track their approach, by the tendrils and shreds of their form. Were there six? Seven of them? It was impossible to tell for sure. All he knew was that slowly, steadily, they were coming closer.

He held his ground, focused on breathing in and out, wishing he'd gotten up and stretched earlier, because the stiffness in his legs and back could be the death of him. He had never seen a ghost cross a line of salt. He had seen their forms blown apart, when it was thrown at them. But he had never entirely trusted that mere salt made him impervious. And he knew a ghost needn't necessarily touch a living person, if they were intent on causing harm.

And then he noticed something even more worrisome than the hovering procession of the dead. He saw it in the shadows on the ground--most notably the shadow cast by his travel pack, and the water bowl.

The ghosts weren't the source of the light he saw. As they meandered off-course, past the tree, the shadows nearest Mori stayed the same. And when they floated back, cloudlike, those shadows still didn't move.

Reluctantly he turned his eyes from the ghosts, following the angle of the shadows, back toward the woods. That's where the light came from. In the same direction he'd approached from, earlier. And just as he realized it, the light grew stronger, clearer; coming closer, he knew.

The whispering chorus of the ghosts rose, and Mori glanced back, just in time to see them--all eight of them--clear and plain, all staring intently down the path, before breaking into a blurry cloud and scattering back into the trees.

The growing light was pure and warm-toned, like candlelight, but unwavering, and for a wild moment, Mori let himself hope that it was a traveler's lantern coming along. Someone alive, and preferably not terrifying.

And then the man emerged from the trees, stately and proud, in his layered robes--white, crimson, and gold--just as stern and powerful as Mori remembered. And all Mori could do was stare.

The man matched his gaze, his walk silent and smooth, as he approached. He stopped, perhaps two strides away, and spared a glance down at the line of salt on the ground, before turning his intense stare back on Mori.

Mori was tempted to pinch himself hard, to make sure he wasn't still dreaming. And then--logically, he felt--he wondered if he'd had another brush with death. But his feet in his boots were throbbing, he could feel the cold sweat on his palm, gripping his staff, and a stray pebble digging into his kneecap, on the ground. 

He never felt these sorts of details in dreams, so this had to be real. 

"I have been trying to decide," the man said, in a deep, measured voice, "what manner of man you are. A brave man? Or a fool."

This was something Mori had wondered for years, and still had no answer. He wondered what he was supposed to say.

"I don't think of myself as brave. But I do stupid things, often enough."  
"You are honest," the man said firmly.

Mori gave a small shrug. "I don't like to lie. I try not to." And then, remembering his manners, he sat back on his heels, lowered his staff, and bowed. In response, the man took a half step back, knelt, and returned the bow, not so deep as Mori's.

Up close, he could see that there was something unnatural about the man's attire. The robes had the sheen of exquisite silk, but he wore too many layers for the season. And they were immaculate. Not a stray leaf or a speck of dirt anywhere. 

Belatedly, he realized he'd seen this same attire on someone else. The same colors, the same layers; this is what Arai had worn, in Mori's dream. When he stood by the broken bridge, asking--all but pleading--for Mori to speak his name.

And now, with this strange being staring him down, in the middle of a haunted forest; exhausted and sore, and so far beyond worry that all he could feel was numbness, Mori tried desperately to understand. There was a connection here, something vastly important, but there were too many pieces, escaping his reach as soon as he grasped for them.

"Is--is it permissible, if I ask a question?" The man had shown up already impatient with him, it seemed. And Mori had the feeling that if he weren't extremely careful, he may well decide to leave him here.

The man's eyes narrowed, as he weighed whether to grant this request. "You may ask," he finally said, in a tone which clearly said he would answer only if it suited him.

"Were you the person following me, earlier?"

A stony silence ensued, while Mori tried to decide if he should've asked something else. But he had no idea how to even frame the questions foremost in his mind. Who was this person? _What_ was he, that he could travel these woods with impunity, and dispel a number of ghosts in his approach? Why had he appeared to Mori before, in a half-way dream between life and death?

"I have known three humans who traveled this territory, without losing their way. One was mad. One was called holy. One understood his power. You remind me of that man. But without understanding."

Mori had a feeling he knew who that last person was. He'd dreamed of him only this morning. He wanted to ask, to be sure, but it seemed to him that every question put forth was a stone laid down upon a board he couldn't see. If he failed to strategize, wasting his moves, his fellow player would declare the game over.

But after a few years in the company of a water spirit, Mori had learned a few things about conversing in riddles. And when he next saw Mizuko-chan, he would build her a shrine, in thanks for the education.

The man had neither confirmed nor denied following him. But the fact that he was comparing Mori to someone implied interest. Comparing Mori to--presumably--the person who had first owned the cottage property, also implied great longevity on his part.

From there, Mori took a wild guess as to the identity of the holy person mentioned. The ghost of that old priest, Yamato-sama, perhaps? He'd had his ashes scattered in the river, ensuring his spirit would linger in the region a long time. Such an act implied courage and uncommon devotion to the well-being of the place where he'd lived. It stood to reason that a man with those qualities, that strength of spirit, could travel a territory like this in relative safety.

 

The identity of the mad person, there was no telling. For the moment, he'd have to let it go.

"I heard of a place that things don't come back from. Is that where we are, now?"  
The man reacted with a minute twitch of one eyebrow. A gesture which, on someone less rigidly austere, might be an exasperated sigh.

"If it finds you, you will know. For as long as you last."  
Mori blinked. The place moved? All along, he'd had the awful notion that Arai had stumbled into that darkness, unknowingly. The thought that it might have purposefully come for him, seeking him out to consume him, was even worse.

But. What had Onuma said, about animals sensing energy? And what about Mizuko-chan's observation, that Arai had more of something--" _...what the stream takes from the river. What trees take from the sun. What the fish take from the water and the air._ "

Life. That was what she had meant. The raw, animate substance that all things depended on. It poured out of that young man like a bubbling wellspring, enlivening all around him, and he gave of it generously, indiscriminately, never holding back.

Which was why, Mori at last realized, with a feeling like a deep, mournful bell tolling within him, Mizuko-chan had given Arai one of her stones. Because he flooded over with life, and had no means within himself to moderate it.

Along with his name and all his memories, that limit of self-preservation which every other living thing possessed, had been stripped from him. Mizuko-chan had said he'd not escaped that place the same. Surely this liability was what she'd meant.

In that moment of painful understanding, Mori forgot all about the person kneeling across from him, and the questions, and the deep thickness of night all around.

He grabbed his staff and stood, went to his pack and began throwing in all the items he'd removed earlier. Empty salt bag, melted stub of his candle, a stray chopstick, first-aid kit, water canteen. He stuffed his matches in his pocket and reached for the bowl of water, ready to dump it on the grass, but then thought better, and pulled his canteen back out.

Outside the ring of salt, the man shifted discreetly. "Your sanctuary could last until morning. It was well-enough made."

Mori paused, looking down at the bowl of water, weighing his resolve against the consequences, before breaking his kekkai. "I can't hide here all night. There isn't time."

"You asked if I followed you, earlier. I see you still fail to realize, that following isn't necessary. You're impossible for anything in this forest to miss."

Because he was noisy? Human? Because he attracted ghosts? Mori had no idea, and at this particular moment, didn't care.

"I know someone who came back, from that dark place. I don't know how he lived, but now his life's in danger, because I didn't understand about him." Quickly, before he could doubt himself, he unscrewed the canteen lid and picked up the bowl.

"I'm going to him, now. And if anything, or any person stands in my way, I will go through them." He poured the last of the water back into the canteen, and quickly tossed the bowl and canteen in his knapsack, before standing to face the man. "I beg your pardon for my rudeness," he bowed. "But I really must be leaving."

The man stood, smooth and unhurried, looking marginally less severe and the minutest bit intrigued. "You can see your way in the dark?"  
Mori patted his pocket. "I can make torches."

"And set the forest ablaze when you tr--" The man broke off abruptly, turning to scowl off into the trees. Following his gaze, Mori could see nothing, but the man squared his shoulders, and stepped back from the ring of salt.

"Come. I dislike interruptions. And a great many of them are now aware of you."

**

"Tell me. Do you know the difference between power and strength?"

Mori considered the question as he strode along, his self-appointed companion keeping pace effortlessly, a half-step behind. The man had made no effort to lead Mori, and so far took no apparent interest in Mori's goal. But the clear radiance which surrounded him lit the way, and in the hour or so they'd been walking, nothing had appeared from the forest to interfere. Save for the sound of Mori's footfalls and the river he still navigated by, it was as quiet as it had been all day.

"Power impels things," Mori finally said. "It can be stored. Released. Strength is....when power is controlled. Applied to something. But it can go either way. It takes strength to move something. And it takes strength to resist moving."

Part of him was tempted to look back to see the man's reaction, wondering if he'd gotten the answer right. It was the first conversation between them since Mori had gone marching out from the sanctuary of his kekkai (with a silent word of apology to Onuma), and while he'd been plenty occupied by chagrin and occasional swells of helpless misery, for the various ways he had failed Arai, he had also entertained a marginal curiosity about why the man was bothering to follow him.

He slowed down to eye the width of a caved-in chunk of riverbank, filled in with tall reeds, before deciding to walk around.

"Had you lacked power," the man said behind him, "you would not have been accepted as guardian. Had you lacked strength, you would not have survived the tests. And yet...."

After he trailed off, Mori waited, resisting the urge to jump for that obvious opening. He considered power and strength, as they applied to the cottage and the land where he lived. He considered blood and binding, and why the property would have been put in his care in the first place, if it was meant for someone roughly his own age. Why had the place accepted Mori at all? Why hadn't it rejected him, and waited for the person it was meant for?

Because Arai couldn't see ghosts. 

The answer struck him like a sudden flash of light, and he misstepped, nearly stumbling. His sight was the power this man referred to. Had he been unable to see that lady's ghost, he could never have helped her. Helping her move on had broken the slumber of the place. It had gained him the key, and the scroll. It had led him to unblock the orchard irrigation, which had in turn drawn the water spirit to lecture him, and a neighbor to help him.

Arai would never have known to do these things. Mori couldn't think of anyone who would have.

"And yet I'm an idiot," he murmured, finishing the man's statement for himself.

Because every time he thought he could put it all together, the whole puzzle collapsed into a jumble. Granted he was bone-tired, and barely able to concentrate. But it seemed to him, that this man was trying to make him see something. Teaching and testing him at the same time. And while he was not so preoccupied about the outcome of the testing--not in light of his more immediate concerns, anyway--it was becoming painfully clear to him that he could no longer afford to stay ignorant of the forces at work, here. He needed to know the stories no one remembered, because they had vital bearing on the present.

But the only person who might know those stories, seemed determined to address him in aphorisms.

"Things obtained by power, must be held onto by strength," the man hinted, and Mori shifted his pack up his shoulders, praying for patience.

"What about things obtained by....," he paused a moment, seeking a proper term. "A promise? Or a debt?"  
"Promises have power," the man answered, and Mori wanted to believe he heard a note of approval there. "Bonds, exchanges. Once made, they impel fate."

"And keeping them requires strength," Mori mused.  
"Some bonds provide strength, where strength is lacking."

Thinking of the protected ground of the cottage property, Mori nodded. And hadn't there been times, that he and Arai had shared strength with each other?

Though how much power was really in a promise, he wondered? He'd always thought of them as a matter of honor, or personal sentiment. Intangible things, really. But what did it mean, when a person such as the stranger now striding beside him, spoke of them as something significant?

"What power does a name have?" he asked, mainly wondering if the man would say anything different than Mizuko-chan had. She'd told Arai that a name was what anchored something to the world, in essence. A name was something binding, like a promise. 

But what was starting to trouble Mori, was his certainty that Arai hadn't merely forgotten his name. If there was no one else in the world who remembered it, the name was entirely gone. His bond with the world was gone, that's what Mizuko-chan had been saying.

All along, he had been convinced that Arai's differences didn't matter--not to who he was, not to his worthiness of acceptance and affection. Mori had been so determined to see the person in front of him, rather than what that person lacked. But if those differences had consequences--to Arai's health, even his very existence--then Mori could not afford to disregard them. He had to learn all he could.

He realized the man had drawn even with him now, not sparing a glance for the path ahead, but fixing his attention on Mori. And with the sense he was on to something important to both of them, Mori stopped. Waited.

"The power of a name is that it is given. The act of naming creates a bond which only the rarest circumstance can break. Humans consider names to be mere words. But a name goes far deeper than a word."

"Is it stronger than blood?" Mori asked, thinking these were the two foremost things that defined a family; name and blood. And one heard of blood pacts, bonds, rituals, and taboos all the time. But relatively little was mentioned about names.

"A river without water is no longer a river. Yet it still exists as a place. A river that is unknown by water, or fish, or men's maps, is nothing at all. It has no existence."

For just an instant, Mori thought he grasped it. How a name wasn't just what people called each other; it was the very existence of something, recognized by other things in the world. If water could find a crevice in the land, then there was a river. If a river dried up, but was still on a map--if there was still the potential for water to find it, then it was still, by some definition, a river.

But if that recognition were removed--from the maps, from the fish, from the water, then there was no river at all. So...if that was what happened to Arai, then.....?

Mori shook his head, baffled at the tangle of abstractions. "But he does exist. I know him. Something took his name, but I still know him."

"He is bound to the world by promises. But that strength alone cannot last. As it weakens, he will fade."

"No!" Mori insisted. "He can't fade. I won't let that happen. I'll do something, tell me what to do!" It was by sheer effort of will that he kept his fists at his sides, instead of gripping the man's collar, forcing him to give the answers.

The man met his outburst with a look of hard, implacable authority, and in the back of his mind, Mori recognized that he was on treacherously thin ice with someone of unmeasured resources. But he was also furious that, with so much at stake, this person who clearly knew Arai, knew exactly who Mori was talking about, was teasing him with abstracts and philosophy, when what Mori desperately needed was straight answers.

"In this circumstance, you possess a power that I do not," the man answered harshly. "I have done all that I am permitted, as a distant kinsman. He was protected by terms which put him beyond my aid. You were the one tested. You are the one who must claim what you are bound to!"

And with that, the man whirled about and vanished, leaving Mori alone in the dark, mind blank with astonishment, feeling like all the breath had just been punched from him.


	38. Chapter 38

He had no idea how long he stood in that spot, reeling from the man's last words. Protected. Claim. Kinsman. Bound. It was like he'd pulled a single twig from a woodpile, and brought the whole pile tumbling down on his head.

When the man first disappeared, the loss of his light left Mori in blind darkness. But as their conversation spun in his head, as he tried to recover any shred of sense from it, he slowly became aware that all was not so pitch-dark as he had thought.

The man had left him in a long clearing, of sorts, where the treeline pulled back far from the riverbank. Looking up, he could see a wide swath of night sky, dusted with glittering stars, and bathed in the glow of a nearly-full moon.

 

He let his feet carry him forward, along the broad, even bank. As long as he could see, he had to move, though all sense of what he was moving toward had been abruptly, irrevocably skewed by that stranger's words, and Mori's headlong urge to rush to his destination was now tempered by the need to consider.

That man had claimed Arai as a kinsman, at the end. Though in all the time the villagers had sought the young man's identity, he had never come forward.

If the stranger wasn't human, and shunned contact with humans (after all, he'd shown less patience with Mori than a certain water spirit Mori knew), then perhaps it was understandable that he wouldn't wish to be involved with the trouble that claiming Arai would surely entail.

But then, whispered an uneasy voice in the basement of Mori's thoughts, what did that make Arai? If he was a relative of a man whose exquisite clothing could not be sullied, who walked without sound, infused the air around him with light, and comprehended mysteries that no book or teacher Mori had ever known could adequately explain; what was he?

_My reason_ , Mori's heart answered firmly. _My purpose. My home_. He recalled a morning, months and months back, when Arai had first tried making tea. So cautious and painstaking, over a task Mori generally undertook with his eyes barely open. How he'd scooped out the leaves, brushing the excess off the top of the spoon with a fingertip, because he wanted to follow directions exactly, and then hovering over the pot to make sure the water boiled.

And Mori had stood by, ducking into the pantry to hide his smile, wondering who in the world wouldn't want such a person around all the time? Arai's innocence, his earnestness, made all the world into a new place, every day. And no matter how much the young man learned, Mori had to hope he would never lose that quality.

That was what Arai was, to him. It was all that mattered. The innate goodness he'd felt flowing into him, embracing him, through that extraordinary bond on New Year's eve. That was Arai. That was what Mori had to save, at all costs.

**

The moon was still high and bright, when he reached the tall, slim wooden posts supporting the bridge, and stopped with a heavy sigh. It was real. Not just a figment of a dream. It was real, and falling to pieces between ancient frayed ropes, just as he'd seen.

He peered down at the ground, saw where the path he'd been on, intersected a faint trail, leading from the bridge, off into the trees. It was a less definite crossroads than he'd pictured, but it was undeniably there.

Leaving the path, he walked to the edge of the bank, already knowing he wouldn't be crossing that bridge. No one in their right mind would test their weight on it. He leaned over and saw the glimmer of moonlight on water, wondering what came next.

He cleared his throat. "Excuse me? I don't mean to disturb. But if there's anyone here who could help me..."  
There came a soft _plunk_ in the water below, and Mori crouched down, straining to see. "Hello?"

"Shh. Quiet," whispered a voice, followed by a trickling sound, as a sleek shape melted upward from a nearby rock. "If they wake, we must leave."

"Sorry," Mori whispered back, glancing around. Carefully, he felt his way down the bank, toward the shape. "I think I'm supposed to meet someone here. Someone who found a broken stone?" He suspected this was the water spirit he'd dreamed about, but just in case it wasn't, he figured this was as good a way as any to break the ice.

He was rewarded, when the figure raised further up, wet skin gilded by moonlight, and raised a pair of round, lambent eyes to meet him. "You remembered the way," it whispered, and Mori nodded, trying to keep a rein on his unreasoning swell of eager hope. These signs from his dream didn't necessarily mean anything good. And he had no idea how far off his goal still was.

"I need to cross your river now," he whispered. "But I don't know where to go."  
"A person waits." The water spirit pointed a long slick arm to the opposite bank, where Mori saw no one. "The white stones are for crossing."

Mori first scanned the steep bank, up and down, before a pale shape in the water caught his eye; a stone, several meters down from the bridge. Rising, he walked downriver, until he was even with the stone in the water, and then crouched, looking for a way to climb down without killing himself.

The bank was less of a sheer dropoff here, but it was nigh impossible to make out hand or footholds in the darkness. He grasped at a nearby bush, tugging to test the strength of its roots, before deciding he'd be better off just sliding down on his back.

After dropping his pack and staff down, it was a short, rough trip, and he hit the wet gravel at the bottom on hands and knees; soaked and scraped, but thankfully unbroken. Down by the water, he could see the line of pale stones, spaced across the blackness of the river, like a path.

Hefting his pack back on his shoulders, he whispered a quiet thanks to the water spirit. "A man will come with a boat, to help me later," he said. "If you meet him, could you please tell him I came here?"

"Shh," the spirit cautioned, her gold eyes sinking back into shadows.

**

The stones were slick, most of them under water, and Mori had to balance his way across slowly, testing his footing with every step. Halfway across, he bent and lowered his staff into the water, testing the depth, and was flummoxed when his hand eventually met the water, the very top of the staff in his grip. How deep did the river run, here? And even more perplexing, what was beneath the stones he stood upon?

Maybe it was best not to know, he decided. The important thing, was to focus on making it across.

The last step was a tricky sideways leap, from the last stone, to a skirt of gravel shore, and he winced at the noise he made on landing. He stood quiet for several seconds after, waiting to see if he'd awakened or disturbed anything, but when all remained still, he proceeded down the narrow stripe at the base of the bank, keeping an eye out for some way to climb up.

He passed under the bridge, and deciding he'd rather not double back, paused to dig Onuma's empty salt bag from his knapsack and place a few small rocks inside so it wouldn't blow away, before cinching it closed and lobbing it high, up onto the bank, as he'd promised. Hopefully Onuma would be able to see it, and know Mori had gotten across safely.

**

Some distance upriver from the bridge, the land sloped down, bringing the bank closer to level with the river. As soon as he could put a hand up over the bank, he swung his pack and staff up, and then after a few tries, got enough of a claw-hold in the dirt to haul himself up, kicking against the bank, to reach higher ground.

Once standing, he looked upriver: flat land and waist-high grasses, and then back downriver, where the jagged silhouettes of tall trees blocked the horizon. Mizuko-chan had said the other water spirit was staying downriver, by the bridge, because of shadows. And if there was something a water spirit would avoid, it was probably best if he avoided it too.

Keeping alert to his surroundings, he headed back toward the bridge, in search of a path across the property, walking as quietly as he was able. He hadn't forgotten that stern and well-dressed stranger's earlier mention, about him being all too easy to find, and hoped that whatever the water spirit hadn't wanted him to awaken, wouldn't be disturbed by his mere presence. Thus far, this place didn't feel especially ominous--not like the forest had, with all the rustling and ghostly laughter. It was warm and muggy, and listening carefully, he could pick out the distant chirp of crickets. But the further he encroached on this land, the less he could afford to let his guard down.

Ever since crossing the river, he'd been waiting to encounter whatever person the water spirit had mentioned. If it had been Arai (somehow he knew that was too much to hope for), surely he would have called out by now, or come out to meet Mori. But no one appeared, friend or foe, and the closer he got to the trees, he started to think they must have missed one another in the dark.

And then he emerged from between a pair of redwoods, onto a beaten dirt track, and it was like stepping into freezing winter; breath-fogging cold, and bluish light flickering over the trunks and low branches of the trees.

The old man's ghost stood hunched in the middle of the path, looking up at Mori from beneath his wide straw hat, leaning on his upturned hoe, and at first glance, Mori's heart clenched with terrible hurt.

_Hito-sama?_

But after a startled rush forward, staring in disbelief, he realized--no. The man looked around Hito-sama's age and height, but stockier, with brushy white eyebrows, and a scraggly white beard.

"Best you keep off from here, young fella," said the old man, in a thin, reedy voice. "Bad sickness going around. Bad luck all over." He shook his head slowly. "If you don't want to catch your death, I suggest you head on back."

"I'm sorry to--," Mori began, then remembering the water spirit's injunction against noise, went on in a hush. "I apologize for trespassing, sir. But I--I was sent here. To help someone."

" 'Less you're a priest bringin' funeral rites an' exorcisms, I dunno how much help you'll be. Most all the help out here are done for already. Guests all rushed off in a panic days ago, and his Lordship's gone raving, up in that cursed house."

"The--the workers?" Mori asked, trembling with the need to scream, or run, or fall to his knees and beg--please, let it not be too late, let him be okay, he would give anything, everything he had. "Are they all gone?"

"There was a few talkin' about gettin' out. Takin' his Lordship's cart and headin' for the village to warn folks. If the sickness ain't got 'em by now, then I guess they made it."

Mori clenched his staff. "There was a young man....a gardener. He--he was sent by Arai-san. Do you know him?"

The ghosts tangled eyebrows rose, and his grim visage eased somewhat. "That boy? My word, he's tenacious as a wood-tick. Any fool could see I wasn't gonna make it, but I'll be damned if he didn't hover anyway, for two days straight." Taking a long look down at himself, he sighed. 

"Sure would've liked to make my peace with folks back home."

"I could do that for you, if you'd like, sir. I can tell someone in the village, what happened. But please, do you know if that person is still....there?"

"Can't say, for certain." The ghost looked up to the overhanging branches of the redwoods, with a confused melancholy that Mori well recognized. "Last I remember, I was dyin' in my bed. After that it was dark for a spell, and then I found myself headin' for that river, yonder."

Because it was Obon, Mori guessed. When the spirits of those passed on visited the earth, and then returned to the other side by river, guided by lanterns lit by their families and loved ones.

"When I get back to the village," he told the ghost, "I'll make sure someone puts out a light for you. If I can't find anyone, I'll do it myself. But first, I have to see if my friend is still here. Can you please tell me how to find him?"

The ghost eyed him curiously. "Say. You wouldn't by chance be that Morinozuka fella, the boy talked about?"

Mori had just enough self-control to hang onto his respectful demeanor, and bowed. "Yes, sir."  
"Heh. Well I'll be. That boy thought the world of you, and I guess he wasn't making it up none. Well, Morinozuka-san." Drawing himself up, the ghost pointed down the path with his hoe. "Keep on that trail, 'til you get to the field shack. Head around the left side, and you'll see a juniper hedge, 'bout yea high. Follow that hedge down a ways, and you'll come up on a gap where there's a stump..."

The ghost's directions were lengthy and detailed, and Mori did his best to commit them to memory. But the thing that most particularly stuck with him, was the warning at the end.

"Whatever you do, keep an eye out for his Lordship. For all I know, the bastard's dead by now, and good riddance. He's a demon in human skin, far as I'm concerned, without a shred of human decency. You plan on gettin' off this godforsaken plot in one piece, you steer clear of him, you got that?"

Mori assured the man that he did, and was on the verge of racing off, when something struck him.  
"I'm sorry. I said I would tell the people in the village about you, but I didn't get your name."

The ghost regarded him with a sad, wise smile. "You know that geezer Hito down there, I reckon? Go find him, then. Tell him Ikasu-sama humbly asks his pardon, but he won't be comin' back to win that shogi game anytime soon."

**

Even if he hadn't known what had transpired on the estate, Mori would have been walking with his teeth set on edge, regardless. As soon as he passed that first shack, he experienced a wary bristling of his instincts; a deep wrongness in the bones and breath of the space around him, which only intensified as he walked on.

Walking in that forest yesterday had been like exploring a forgotten attic in a locked-up house. This place, by comparison, was more like wandering through a den of sleeping boars, while eying the glint of their razor-edged tusks. There was something violent, unreasoning, and hungry, slumbering under the too-still surface of the night. And Mori knew he was getting closer to the center of the estate, because the further he walked, the more intense his dread became.

It was an outright aversion, by the time he reached the first low structures (worker housing and tool sheds) that the unfortunate Ikasu had described to him, and a knot of pain was throbbing in the space between his eyes. He took deep, regular breaths, in and out, and counted his quiet steps to focus away from the headache, but he knew it would only help so much. If the people here had succumbed to what he was suspecting they had--like that family, so many years ago, poisoned by the rage and terror trapped within the walls of their house--then he knew the longer he stayed here, the worse it would be for him.

Despite the nagging headache, he had the foresight to keep to the shadows, and avoid the gravel paths, where his footsteps would surely be heard. As badly as he wanted to run, as awful as the images were that his imagination now conjured, there was still some chance that he would need to make it back out of here, with Arai. He couldn't risk their retreat, by awakening the dangerous tenant of this place, or the potentially more dangerous things which still hid from his sight.

So even when he reached the newer-looking structure, unmistakable and utterly out of place, with its scrolled-iron framing and tall glass windows, he took the time to halt in the shadow by the doorway, rubbing at the spiking pain in his temple, as he searched the brittle stillness of the surrounding night. He took the time to study the door, how it was built to swing inward instead of sliding, and then carefully, oh-so-quietly, he pressed the latch above the handle, and eased the door open.

**

The potted blooms lining the room were like nothing he'd ever seen. Row upon row of tall stalks, each bent under the weight of a single flower. Broad roundish petals spreading outward from the sides, with a lip petal pouting down; like orchids, but too large for any orchid Mori knew of. The flowers were each nearly the size of his outspread hand, and each had been cultivated in its own pot.

Doubtless they were beautiful in full daylight, and doubtless they were extraordinarily rare. But for no reason he could explain, Mori distrusted them on sight. He had never begrudged any species of plant its existence before; even stinging briars and poisonous mushrooms had a right to flourish where they could. 

Perhaps it was the overall effect of this place, or his marathon of hair-trigger caution was finally taking its toll on him. Whatever the reason, these flowers felt sinister to him, and as he entered the hothouse proper, closing the door with a quiet click behind him, he gave the tables lined with pots a wide berth.

"Hsst," he whispered, walking forward through the dimness. "Is anyone here?"

The room was a long rectangle, with tables running down one side, and an L-turn at the back. Halfway down, Mori saw the turn led to a second room, blocked by a thick curtain. "Hello?" he called, a little more loudly, the beat of his heart reverberating through his whole chest, and a deep coldness curling uneasily at the base of his spine

It had to be almost dawn by now. Arai was probably deep asleep. Or maybe he'd already escaped on that cart, with the other survivors. 

But then Mori's eyes trailed reluctantly over to the flowers, watching him from their pots, and somehow he knew. Arai wouldn't have left them. The world could end around him, and until his last breath, he would tend the work he'd been trusted with.

_Quit being a coward_ , he chided himself. _Stop making excuses and face what you came here for._ He would push back that curtain, and Arai would be there, or he wouldn't. Or he would be....he'd be....

Mori had been able to say it aloud at Onuma's, but now that word lurked behind a solid wall of blackness, and Mori's entire existence would be swallowed by that blackness; every moment from henceforth would consist of utter nothingness, if that word was true.

He sucked in a deep breath, and another, drawing himself up fully, dragging together every last shred of strength within him, deciding that if this were the last thing he ever faced as a sane, whole man, it was worth facing with all his courage. He pulled in a third breath, starting forward with resolute strides, sick in his stomach but straight-backed and still breathing, feet firm across the floorboards, reaching for the curtain.

Then a rasp and a flare of matchlight within, harsh coughs and a hoarse voice--  
"Kuki-chan? You're not supposed to--." --breaking off as the curtain opened, and he gasped, scrambling backward on the narrow cot until his back hit the wall, breath a high panicked whistle in his lungs, before he doubled up coughing.

It was three seconds before Mori could make himself move, but really it was a cosmic infinity, with the entirety of his universe tilting on some vast ponderous axis, and settling on a single word: _Alive_.

And then he realized he was looming in the doorway, nothing but a half-lit shadow and scaring the life out of the young man cringing defenseless against the wall. His pack and staff hit the floor somewhere behind him, and he was talking reassurances, going to his knees next to the bed, saying, "Sorry, sorry I scared you," fingers clamped around his arms because it was the only way he could keep from grabbing Arai, and crushing him to his chest.

The coughing trailed off, as the young man slowly raised his head, looking at Mori over his arm with damp eyes growing wide, wider, and the sudden jolt of fear draining off to slack, dumb astonishment. "Wh--how....uh....Takashi?"

"I came--here, I. Your stone, and, there were ghosts, and I walked since yesterday, and Ikasu-san...." Mori was trembling and sucking in more breath than he could get out, too much relief after too much everything and god, he was so thin, cheekbones and collarbones stretching the skin, huge eyes sunken in dark purple shadows, so frail he could break if Mori even touched him.

"Ikasu-san--." Arai looked off, sagging down the wall as muzzy bewilderment gave way to full recollection. "They--they're all _gone_." His breath hitched and rattled, setting off coughing sobs, and it broke through Mori's own stricken turmoil.

He lurched forward, catching Arai around the shoulders, careful of his sharp, fragile angles, pulling him in as gently as he could. Arai let out a muffled keening sound, terrible in its softness, and burrowed against Mori.

"...I tried to help out, I--I--I tried to do everything Ikasu-san said, and the sluice gate got stuck, but-but Mishiyo-san was the only one who could fix it, and he was gone, and they said Sachiko-san died, and Taira-san, and nobody was in the kitchen, so I had to make soup for Ikasu-san, but I couldn't--."

"Shh, shh." Arai was weeping his heart out now, tears soaking through Mori's shirt, skin hot as a furnace under Mori's hands. 

He knew he had to get Arai out of here. Seeing this place, and knowing Arai's vulnerability, Mori knew it was a miracle the young man was still alive at all. If that stone he'd worn was meant to control what poured out of him, it was little wonder it had been overtaxed and finally broken. The very air here was lethal, and who knew how much Arai had unwittingly given of himself, trying to save Ikasu and the others.

But as Mori tried to imagine what Arai must have endured--nursing a dying man and losing him anyway, trying to uphold his duty, while the place he'd worked so hard for fell into deathly silence. Suffering just as the others had from a malady they couldn't see or comprehend, while struggling with all his might and all his heart, to hang on. With no help, no reassurance--. 

If he needed to fall apart after all that, Mori reasoned, it was perfectly understandable.

"I know you did your best," he said quietly. "I know you're tired, and hurt. But this place isn't safe to stay in. We need to get you back to the village, to see Kamio-sensei. You're running a fever." He stroked Arai's hair back from his damp eyes and burning forehead, as the young man shuddered with coughing, trying to catch his breath around broken sobs. 

Mori held on to him, patient with the outpouring of grief which must have built for so long, waiting as it slowly exhausted itself. He tilted his cheek to Arai's head, looking at the rough apple box next to the cot, serving for a nightstand, with the battered tin lantern, candlelight spilling through the cracks. 

His eyes roamed over an empty wooden cup, a bare stub of a pencil, and the book laying nearby, open to a painting of a leafy beech in a summer clearing.

"That's a very nice watercolor," he noted. "Did you do that?"  
"Huh?" Arai wiped at his eyes, sniffling, and leaned back to follow Mori's gaze. "Oh, no. It's--Ikasu-san told me to keep it. For the pictures." Reaching an unsteady hand across Mori, he flipped over a few leafs, to pages full of sketched studies and colored brushstrokes. "It's the same flowers growing here. So I could see what they're supposed to look like."

He expelled a shuddering sigh, and leaned against Mori. "I was trying to learn the words. But they're hard to read. Somebody wrote in it a lot, though."

Mori knew they shouldn't tarry, he should be helping Arai dress, find his boots. But something about this book drew his attention, with quiet insistence. He reached over and flipped a page, recognized a detailed botanical sketch of the flowers in the next room. There were notes by the parts of the flower, in some spidery thin script which he at first took for decoration.

They were words. Just not in any language he recognized. However the next page was a large watercolor study of the same flower, done in the style of a scroll painting, and here the artist had tried their hand at proper calligraphy.

_Lured by sweet fragrance_  
_After stormy seas we found_  
_Withered petals, all._

It seemed to Mori, that someone hadn't liked those flowers any more than he.

_The cicadas cry,_ he read on the next page.  
_Dropping off their broken shells.  
Truth in dying song._

The characters were trickling knots, tumbling down the page next to a bold splash of orange; a few artful twists of the brush, suggesting a starburst, with speckles of paint dashed across the....

Petals. It was an orange lily.

Mori stared down at the poem, momentarily dazed by the force of the connections, exploding like a string of firecrackers in his brain. The lily. The sketchbook. The woman, who'd crossed the seas and found her life in danger. Who'd tried to code her secrets in paint and poetry, before she was killed.

And all along, while her ghost had wandered, her missing sketchbook had been in the house of her murderer.

"Gregor," he mumbled, as Arai flinched against him.  
"Wh-where?"

The foreign lady who'd died in the bear trap, who'd made the journal he now held, had told Mori, and he'd forgotten. "You couldn't spell his name, so you sounded it out." He drew the book closer, shut it with one hand, vaguely marveling how that hand wasn't shaking, not in the least. "All the times I read your letters. It never dawned on me."

"What do you mean? I don't get it--."  
"Get your pants and boots on. We have to leave, right now." Out of the aftershock of revelation, his voice came from the midst of a calm that felt unearthly, like something outside himself, directing his movements.

As he stood, Arai watched with fever-glazed eyes, pained, confused, and lost. "My--my pants fell apart. I--," he averted his gaze. "I just wear my work clothes to bed."  
"That's fine, then," Mori answered, fetching his pack and wedging the journal inside, feeling for the first bag of salt he'd packed, and bringing it out to stuff into his pocket. "Boots?"

Before Arai could answer, Mori spotted them under the cot, and crawled over to pull them out. "I'll explain, but there's no time now. Right foot," he directed, catching Arai's heel, taking advantage of the young man's bewilderment, to slip his boot on and hastily tie it, before going for the left foot.

"C'mon, up you go." He got his arm around Arai, supporting his skinny, wavering form, conscious of every ridge of his ribs as the young man hunched and coughed into his bent arm. There was no guesswork about it; Arai wasn't going to make it off the property on his own two feet, but Mori at least hoped to keep both hands free until they made it past the main buildings.

"When we get outside, try to be quiet as you can," he coached, guiding Arai past the curtain and out into the main room of the hothouse. "I know you feel bad, but we have to move fast, so do your best to keep up with me."

As they headed for the door, Mori noted that the sky outside had taken on the first gray tinge of coming dawn. He kept his eyes trained out the window, trying very hard to ignore what was surely a hallucination on the edge of his vision; that all the flowers in their pots were turning their blossoms like curious heads, tracking Arai's passage down the room.

He did not doubt that those flowers were as much responsible for Arai's condition, as whatever curse had taken out the rest of the people here. If time and a quiet escape weren't both so crucially important, and if he weren't fairly sure that Arai would never forgive him, Mori might have been tempted to smash every one of those pots and crush the blooms under his heel.

Though it sounded like Arai was having enough trouble just walking and breathing, let alone discussing anything, and when they reached the door, Mori paused to look him over.  
"Okay, you ready?"

It took two labored, rasping breaths before Arai could nod, head hanging low. "Hm."  
For the time being, Mori's determination burned fiercer than his worry or sympathy, but he gave Arai time for another few breaths, before pressing his walking staff into Arai's grip, so he could open the door.


	39. Chapter 39

The chill early morning damp was a soothing distraction from Mori's near-blinding headache, but it brought little real relief. It felt like steel claws were tearing at the soft tissue of his skull, and with every wave of pain, his stomach did a slow queasy roll.

But he had Arai, clinging to his side, keeping his feet even in spite of the occasional stumbles, and with every step that evil place and its tangible dangers were falling farther behind. By the time they passed the tool sheds, Mori had a scorching tense knot between his neck and shoulderblades, to go along with the headache, and the rest of his body was finally taking him to task for yesterday's marathon march, with practically no sleep, too much adrenaline, and very little food. 

He refused to spare any attention for his own discomfort, though. There simply wasn't room for it. Arai's stamina and their surroundings were the only important things, period. Even if he'd lost an arm back there, or had taken a bite from a viper, his priorities would remain unquestionably the same. At the very moment he'd seen Arai, alive in that room, his goal had been fixed. No matter what, he would not fail to get Arai out of this place, and ensure his survival.

**

When he caught sight of the field shack, with the boundary hedge not far behind, his headache relaxed its claws a centimeter, and he chanced a deep breath of something like relief. At the same moment, Arai's knees gave out for the last time and he collapsed unconscious into Mori with a rattling wheeze.

"Okay, I've got you," Mori breathed, catching him up in both arms as Arai went limp. He could no longer pretend that the pale dawn haze was responsible for that deathly gray complexion, or the bruised-looking hollows around his eyes. But putting his palm to Arai's chest, he could feel his heart still beating strong and steady, and told himself that illness could be recovered from, and he must not waste precious time with useless fretting.

After a last wary look around, he turned his staff up behind his head with one hand and wedged it between his pack and his spine, cinching the shoulder straps tight, before scooping Arai up in his arms. He did not dwell on the observation that the weight he bore felt scarcely heavier than a sack of rice. That was for later, when he wasn't straining his ears for any sound, in a morning that should've been astir with waking birds, but was silent as a midnight graveyard, instead.

At least carrying Arai meant he could cover ground faster, and he made the most of it, lengthening his stride across the weeds and grass until he reached the path into the redwoods, and from there all but running for the river.

His plan was to try and wake Arai up at the riverbank, by the bridge. Slide down the way he first had on the opposite side, and then help Arai down. From there, they could hide under the bridge and rest, waiting for Onuma to show.

If for some reason Onuma didn't show.... well, Mori would tackle that problem if it arose.

"Hey," he whispered, easing Arai down on the grass of the riverbank. "You need to wake up, okay? Just for a little bit." He laid his hand to Arai's cheek, brushing the damp hair back from his temples, skin so hot he should be glowing instead of so terribly, frighteningly pale.

But Arai did rouse as Mori lay him down, making soft noises of confusion that were a blessing to Mori's ears as he shucked his pack and staff. "We're both going to rest in a second," Mori explained, digging for his canteen. "But first we have to climb down."

"Climb?" Arai mumbled, squinting at him. "Where're we at?"  
"The river. Onuma-san should be coming with a boat, to help us get back. It might be awhile, though."

"What--but I can't--" A troubled crease drew between his brows, and Arai struggled to push up on his elbow. "Can't just go. Got work to do...." His eyes were distant, clouding over with delirium. "Well's dried up. Gotta get water."

Mori was not at all surprised that Arai's conscience wouldn't let him abandon the place without an argument. He'd expected it before now, actually. "No, listen. There's nothing else to do there. That place made everyone sick. It's done for."

"But--but the sluice gate....somebody has to fix it. The flowers have to get watered, Ikasu-san said so--."  
"No, I talked to Ikasu-san." Mori caught Arai's arms, trying to keep him still, make him listen. "Look, look at me, okay? Ikasu-san said to leave now. Understand?"

It was painful, to watch that spark of determination--misguided as it was--flicker and die, as Arai's confusion cleared enough for the sharp pang of comprehension to return. "He said....but he's. You saw Ikasu-san?"

Mori sighed. "I talked to his ghost. He told me it was too dangerous, for anyone to be there. You were the only one left. Besides....that tenant." He knew the name now, would never forget it, but felt a weirdly superstitious reluctance to say it aloud, until they were somewhere safer than this.

And then Arai stiffened, making a soft noise of distress. "My box! I forgot to get it!" He twisted in Mori's grasp, wheezing and trying to get up, as Mori sought to settle him.  
"Wait, hang on, don't--what box?"

"Please, I can't leave it there, I have to get it--."  
"You mean that wooden one?"

Arai nodded, even as he succumbed to a coughing fit, pleading at Mori with his eyes. And Mori didn't need to argue, to understand the importance of Arai's collection; that small box of keepsakes he'd carried with him from one house to the next, shuffled along through a fate he had no say over. The only things he could call his own, in a life where everything else had been taken.

This place would leave scars which Arai would never entirely forget. And as purely unwise as he knew it was, Mori also understood that making Arai abandon his treasures, after all else he'd endured here, was simply too much to ask.

"All right. I'll get it for you. When Onuma comes, I'll go back." Keeping his grim resignation to himself, Mori uncapped the canteen, and urged Arai to drink, before wetting his handkerchief, and gently wiping the young man's forehead and temples.

Having spent his energy, Arai submitted to the attentions in listless silence, barely noticing when Mori retrieved his sweater and bundled it under his head, after deciding he may as well wait for Onuma's help getting the exhausted young man down to the riverside.

As the sun steadily rose higher, revealing a white overcast sky, Mori was able to make out the river and its surroundings properly. There wasn't much to see, besides the steep bank opposite, the disintegrating bridge (looking even more hopelessly decrepit in daylight), and the grayish trunks of the cypress, some distance back.

He had wondered if his return with Arai would have gotten the attention of the water spirit, but if she was still around, he saw no sign of her. Or Ikasu's ghost, for that matter. In the back his mind, he hoped this meant they'd both found business elsewhere, as opposed to having been chased off by something.

Arai had slid back into unconsciousness next to him, his breathing sounding less painfully labored, now that he lay still. As much as Mori regretted it, he knew there was no way they could bypass the village and go straight for the sanctuary of the cottage. Arai needed a doctor's care, possibly for a length of time. Leaving him alone there was out of the question, of course, which meant Mori would have to make arrangements to stay nearby.

When the ground next to his companion started looking far too comfortable, Mori stood, stretching out his aching back and arms, forcing himself to move and keep alert. He did several deep knee-bends and stretched down to touch his toes, and when his feet complained heartily, reminded himself to be grateful that at least his headache had finally subsided.

He was just straightening up, when a blur of motion down by the bend in the river caught his eye, and he dropped back into a crouch, fumbling for his staff. The blur resolved into a long dark shape, bobbing into view from a stand of reeds, and when Mori's tired eyes finally made sense of the picture, he hurried for the bank.

"Onuma!" he hissed. "Up here."

The man tipped the canoe off his shoulder, breathing hard, and frowned up at Mori. "You look like hell. Any trouble?"  
Mori shook his head, spreading out his arms to show he was still in one piece, and said, "You're early?"

Dropping the canoe on the gravel shore, Onuma bent for a moment's rest, propping his hands on his knees, before pushing up with an effort and closing the distance between them. "Next time you have a weird dream, let me know so I can call an army." He shook his head, arming the sweat off his brow. 

"What happened? You alright?" Mori asked.

"Whole village is in a panic over this place. I got the cart loaded up and tore out, fast as I could. Ran into some folks around dawn, looking like death warmed over, trying to carry some people out. I gave 'em the cart...." Looking up past Mori's shoulder, he added, "Hope that's okay."

"It's fine. I got him....early this morning. He's not well, but." Mori glanced briefly back at Arai, curled on the ground. "Can you help me get him down? I don't think he can walk any more."

It took some doing, getting Arai awake enough to understand what was going on, and then lowering him down the bank far enough that Onuma could support him the rest of the way down. After a feeble response to Onuma's greeting, he went limp again, and as Onuma lowered him to the gravel, he shot Mori a look of alarm.

"What the hell happened there?"  
"The property's cursed. And the tenant's a killer," Mori answered. "I need to run back for something. Can you--."

"You're insane," Onuma broke in, pointing a finger at him. "I know that look. I thought you weren't going to push your luck anymore."  
Mori shook his head. "I'm sorry, but it's important. I should make it back in twenty minutes, if I run." 

He dropped his pack down the bank, and went to grab his staff, as Onuma growled, "Dammit, Morinozuka."  
"Please take care of him." Mori stood, facing the path back to the estate, summoning his energy for one last sprint. "I'll be back soon."

**

By the time he found the box, buried under the mattress of Arai's cot, Mori was drenched with sweat, struggling to catch his breath, and swallowing against his gag reflex. The pain in his head was excruciating, sending out white-hot tendrils down his neck, into his shoulders, pinching at the nerves between his vertebrae.

He clutched the box against his chest with one arm and staggered out from the dark little room into the milky white light of the hothouse proper, leaning heavily on his staff with every step. The flowers in their pots slithered their leaves together as he passed (there was no pretending otherwise this time), and as he tipped his forehead to the door, pulling himself together for the run back, he heard a distinct crack as one of the ceramic pots gave way.

So he wrenched the door open, and ran.

**

Somewhere outside the throbbing in his head, past the high ringing buzz in his ears, he became aware of footfalls behind him. It was hard to tell whether his pursuer was gaining on him, and Mori didn't dare slow down or look back to tell for sure. He tried to pace himself, waiting for the last straight path to the river before going all-out, thinking if he had to make a stand, he'd best do it within reach of Onuma's aid.

Then he launched through the gap in the boundary hedge, caught his foot on the stump there and fell sprawling, striking the ground hard enough to knock the sense out of him, stars exploding in his vision as a high voice screamed, "Wait! Please take me with you, I beg you!"

He had just enough time to push himself up to his knees, before the girl came bursting out from the hedge, wild-eyed panic blinking to open-mouthed surprise in the second before she stumbled over him in a tangle of robes and elbows, and a bruising knee to his ribs.

"Mo-Morinozuka-sama! I'm so sorry--oh--sorry, please--." She tried to disentangle herself , tear-streaked face and disheveled hair, struggling to her knees against the binding hem of her kimono. "Forgive me, so clumsy, I beg your pardon."

Momentarily stunned by the impact of his fall, and the impact of the girl, Mori could only stare. "Kuki-chan?"

"I'm sorry! I was hiding in the kitchen garden, and saw Morinozuka-sama cross the yard," she gasped. "I tried to catch up, but--oh! You dropped your things!" 

Spotting Arai's box, broken open in the force of Mori's fall, she reached for it, and began hastily plucking the scattered contents from the grass. 

He had maybe five seconds to contemplate her extraordinary accidental luck--if Arai hadn't left his box, Mori wouldn't have come back. If Mori hadn't come back, she would have been left behind. Of course there was also the question of why she was still here at all, but as Mori's head cleared, he knew they had no time to waste on things that could be sorted out later. If Kuki-chan's screaming across the property hadn't seized the tenant's attention, then nothing would.

He grabbed the lid of Arai's box, seeking the rest of the strewn objects--string ball, cardinal feather, a vaguely familiar shirt button--and dropping them in the box. He had only picked up the flat gray stone to move it aside, but then the ridged texture under his fingers jarred his focus.

"I--I think that's everything," Kuki-chan was saying, patting the grass around them. "I'm very sorry if anything broke..."

But Mori wasn't listening. He was too busy staring at the worn-away carving on the stone in his palm.

_...come home...._

That's all that was left. If he hadn't carved it himself, if he didn't already recognize it from a long-ago dream, he probably couldn't have made out that much.

_How?_ he wondered, tracing the chipped-out strokes with his fingertip. How long had Arai kept this? And how in the name of all that was sacred, had he found it?

"We--." He swallowed hard, trying to drag himself back to the moment, but unable to look away from the stone in his hand. "We need to go. Is anyone else still--."  
He was cut off by a noisy snuffling down the hedge, just as Kuki-chan let out a thin shriek and dove behind him. Then came a whine, the rustling of several feet, and Mori was scrambling up, jamming the stone into his pocket so he could grip his staff.

"Keep that box, and stay behind me," he ordered, stepping back from the hedge.  
"....the dogs," she whimpered.

Mori paced backwards, trusting that Kuki-chan was falling back as well. From the hedge there came a quiet yip, more eager whines, and then the hound peered through the gap in the hedge and spotted him.

With a last, slow step back, Mori stilled, glancing up and down the hedge, knowing they could come from anywhere. "Kuki-chan, do you know how to get to the river from here?"

"I--no, I--"  
"Listen carefully," Mori interrupted, staring down the hound now taking his measure. Any second, it would decide to leap, and the best he could do was ensure her escape. "You see the redwoods behind us?"

"...yes?"  
"There's a path there, to a bridge. When I tell you, run as fast as you can, and don't look back. Onuma-san is down by the river, call for him to help you. You understand?"

"But...what about Morinozuka-sama?"  
"I'm giving you a head start. I'll stop the dogs from chasing you, but you have to run."  
"But--"  
"No buts. Do you understand?"

The first hound was crowded aside by a second, looking avidly at Mori, and he could hear the rest of the pack gathering.  
"I understand," whispered Kuki-chan. "Run for the river."

He was on the verge of sending her off, when a piercing bray sounded somewhere to the left. The rest of the pack must have flanked them from the front of the property, he realized, dropping back another step, turning to put the long line of the hedge in his sight, and the stand of redwoods directly behind him.

If he let Kuki-chan go now, that group could well cut across and intercept before she made the river. As much as he disliked it, the safest choice was to wait until all the pack converged on the same spot.

"Keep an eye behind us," Mori told her. "I'll tell you when it's safe to run."  
"Yes, Morinozuka-sama."

As the first dogs crept through the gap, Mori counted and estimated size. Four of them, healthy adults of average build. From their mainly curious demeanor, Mori guessed they were trained to accept the presence of guests, and were trying to decide whether he was a guest or a trespasser. He expected they would try to pen him in until their master showed, and that he would have a very short window of time, between the point the whole pack assembled, and when Gregor tracked them down.

Seeing the hounds, it wasn't much of a leap to guess who the tenant was. Mori had encountered the man before, two years back, on his own property. And if he'd had any energy to spare, if he weren't shaking with fatigue where he stood, desperately clinging to his wits, he would think how curious it was, how strangely ironic to have come all this way, after all this time, to meet someone he'd already known.

"Kuki-chan?" he asked thoughtfully.  
"Yes?"  
"Have you ever seen those dogs threaten anyone?"

"No--not. Only in the house. Going in the south wing is forbidden. They growl and show their teeth, if anyone goes there. But. I saw them once, with--with a rabbit." From her tone, he could well enough infer the kind of viciousness that had entailed.

He nodded, as the four hounds stepped cautiously nearer, tails bobbing vaguely. As long as he and Kuki-chan stood their ground, he expected they should be all right. But as soon as they ran....

With yips and panting, three more hounds came trotting down the line of the hedge, and as the dogs all exchanged sniffs and greetings, Mori took the opportunity to take two more slow steps back. The dog at the front raised its head, snuffing the air in his direction, and just from the expression in its eyes, Mori knew. This was the leader. And it remembered him.

"Is the path behind me clear?" he asked Kuki-chan.  
"Yes--I think--yes, Morinozuka-sama."

"Thank you," he said, and then shouted, "Go now!"

Hearing her jolt into motion, Mori lunged forward, spinning his staff to distract the dogs. "Oi, look at me! Look right here!" He leapt to the side to head off one hound making to run for Kuki-chan and it bounded back toward the pack, barking at him. The other dogs milled, seeking a way past him, yipping and whining, as the leader stretched its neck and let out a full-throated howl.

Three minutes. Surely she could make it to the river in that time. If he could just stall the dogs for two minutes, he prayed, jumping to intercept another hound and herd it back. By now most of them were barking, and crowding gradually nearer to him, seeking to surround him. Merely waving his staff around wasn't going to be a deterrent for long, but Mori truly didn't want to injure one. So he shouted, and rushed the edges of the pack, trying to be as much of a menacing, noisy distraction as he could, while counting off the seconds in his head.

Timing would be everything. If Kuki-chan reached Onuma, he'd hopefully have the sense to bundle her and Arai into the canoe. When Mori came rushing up behind, it wouldn't matter if the hounds were on his heels. They would hesitate at the high bank, giving him time to slide down and jump into the canoe. With he and Onuma paddling furiously, they'd be free of the place in no time.

One of the hounds trotted up boldly, snapping for Mori's ankles, and without thinking, Mori thumped the end of his staff into the ground hard, startled when the dog let out an injured wail and sprang back for the rear of the group, tail tucked low.

For a second, Mori's concentration broke. Could he have hit it by mistake? Had his control actually slipped that time? He frowned at the end of his staff, ready to swear he hadn't even grazed the dog.

Fatigue. He had to be more careful. The dog was shaking its head, ears flapping, and the rest of the pack had let off baying for a second, to put a wary few centimeters more distance between themselves and Mori.

"I'm sorry," he called, swinging his staff back up to the ready. "I didn't mean to injure you."

"If you don't intend injury," said the man stepping out of the gap in the hedge, "then perhaps you oughtn't carry a weapon at all."

_Damn it._ Right there, caught at the worst possible time, he saw his plans all crumbled to uselessness. He wanted to drop to the ground and pound it with his fists, furious at letting himself get caught. 

"Not saying that's much of a weapon," the man drawled as an afterthought, eying Mori's staff with open disdain. He hefted up a peculiar contraption of wood and iron, about the length of his forearm, with a thin sharp-tipped spear fixed to the front. Mori had never seen anything like it, but it looked deadly.

Stupid, he was so _stupid_ for not running when he'd had the chance. But it was too late for regrets, and kicking himself wouldn't save him. The only way to survive now, and ensure his friends' survival, was to stay calm, and assess what chances were left to him.

"I don't generally have a need for weapons," he answered, studying the spear device, wondering how it worked. "Mostly my staff is for walking with."

"And for striking other men's dogs, one supposes," the man answered, lip curling in contempt. "How cowardly."

Gregor was exactly as Mori remembered. Arrogant, ill-mannered, with a gleam of base cruelty in his pale-colored eyes. On that day they'd first met, Mori hadn't thought he could dislike anyone more. But now, knowing how this man had neglected the people in his employment, knowing how Arai had suffered because of him, Mori found his dislike had evolved quite easily to absolute hatred.

He would not forget the way Arai had flinched, hearing that name, and knew for the time being he would have to dismiss that from his thoughts. He was already at a grave disadvantage, and as the monks had so wisely told him, anger clouded the mind.

"I did not intend to strike your dog," he said, still not convinced he actually had. "I apologize."  
"But you did intend to trespass on my land, and abscond with my servant," said Gregor. "And I find that most offensive. Do you know what the punishment is for poachers, in my country?"

"It wasn't a matter of poaching, or absconding. That woman left your employment voluntarily. You should know by now, that this estate is unsafe for anyone."

"Do not presume to lecture me on my own property. The only people my estate is unsafe for, are lazy, superstitious peasants," Gregor snapped back. "And while I am not so grieved at the loss of some useless maid, I do insist you return my gardener."

"Once again, I have to apologize," said Mori, though this time he made no effort to sound sorry. "I'm afraid that isn't possible."

Gregor's pale eyes narrowed, and the corners of his mouth drew down. "You have no idea how very tiresome I have come to find that phrase." He raised his strange weapon, leveling it at Mori, and Mori tensed. Without knowing what to expect, he couldn't hope to defend himself. How did the damn thing even work? 

"However I have discovered that an arrow in a man's leg is often quite persuasive, when he claims something is impossible. Shall I give you a demonstration?"

It was in that moment, that Mori noticed three things at once. First, that the spear on the man's weapon was drawn back on a short horizontal string, like an archer's bow. Second, that the headache he'd thought himself rid of was rushing back full force, even as the temperature around them was dropping so fast it made his ears and sinuses ache. The dogs had already noticed the change in the air, shifting and whining amongst themselves, sidling off nervously from the hedge, casting wary looks back toward the property.

"I think something's wrong," Mori said, nodding toward the dogs, hoping to distract Gregor, so he could think. Casting his mind back to that half-drunken conversation with Onuma, which Gregor's weapon had reminded him of.

...Archers...

"All that's wrong is that _my gardener_ has gone absent without my permission," Gregor said, his clipped tones becoming strident. "And as I am seeking to rectify that--."

"That person is dying, just like all your employees," Mori barked, not taking his eyes from that string across the weapon, thinking _Archers...,_ as the chill closed in around him, and a chorus of icy dark whispers crept in on the edge of his hearing. "And the reason they all died, is coming right now. Look at your hounds!"

He would only have one chance to try it. But he'd have to wait until Gregor got a shot off, first. It was no good to strike and run, just to get shot in the back. And if his strike didn't work, he would definitely have to run.

Gregor sneered and ranted, and Mori breathed and scrambled to center his spirit. Remembering that day with Onuma, that sensation of gathering power, and the release that had silenced the forest.

He had done it to Onuma--and the hound, surely--by accident. He had done what the New Year's archers were supposed to do, releasing their gathered energy in a single perfect shot. Now if he could do it again, with purpose, he might have a chance to escape.

"You have no comprehension of the difficulty I've gone to, raising that crop!" Gregor was shouting now, his weapon wavering in the air in a way that was genuinely alarming. "I've invested a fortune greater than you will ever see. Twice, I've forsaken the comforts of civilization for this filthy godforsaken swamp, all knowing that when I return home, it will be in triumph."

"Was it worth killing one of your own guests?" Mori pressed, thinking that yes, anger clouded the mind, and he could use that now. "Was it worth making all those people suffer for your misdeeds?"

Gregor went livid, quivering with rage. "I shall not be thwarted this time. I will have that boy back, if I have to burn your entire miserable slum of a village to accomplish it!"

It was then that Mori understood that whatever those flowers were, they hadn't grown without Arai. That's why he had been living in the hothouse, alone. That's why his deteriorating health had gone ignored. Because all Gregor could see by now was the object of his greed. Everything else was expendable.

He stared back at the man with all the chilly hauteur he could muster, over his thrumming nerves and screaming headache. 

"No. You won't have him. He is not, and never will be yours."

He was almost too slow. The string twanged, the arrow flashed, Mori's staff dropped, barely in time to knock it off-course. At the moment it skimmed his boot, Gregor screamed--what Mori first took for anger, until he looked up and saw the man clutching his shoulder, staring in horror at the knife-hilt protruding from the joint.

"Raise that weapon again," called a resonant, clear voice behind Mori, "and the next one goes between your eyes."

The hounds went berserk, as Gregor staggered back a step, sweeping the grass and thick brush off Mori's left shoulder with a venomous eye. "Mark my words, you will regret this insult," he cried. "For the remainder of your worthless life."

Mori gathered in passing that Onuma was hidden somewhere behind him, just as his massive relief at the man's timeliness was crushed by the sight he'd been dreading since he first set foot in this place.

Patches of crackling blackness were seeping out of the hedge, and trickling up from the ground nearby, obscuring the hazy white morning with the leaden gloom of an afternoon storm. The dogs were seeing it too, barking and snarling at the encroachment, eyes rolling to show the whites as they scrambled over each other to retreat.

Mori himself fell back, struggling against the pure wordless fear that froze his arms and legs; a terror he hadn't encountered in years, yet which still managed to paralyze him. He was aware that Gregor was railing at Onuma to come out, show himself, and he knew that he himself should be running right now, running for all he was worth.

But all he could do was look on, powerless, as the shivering darkness massed together, blinking out of one spot and swelling into another space with unreal speed. A sickening buzz gripped the base of his skull, and he knew this unspeakable evil was finding them, hemming them in.

It caught up to Gregor first, and the man paled as the darkness flickered against his skin. "Poison!" He gripped the hilt of the knife in his shoulder, eyes blazing with vengeful madness. "I've been poisoned! You savages will see the rack for this!"

With a chilling scream, he tore the knife from his shoulder, spattering blood across the ground, and Mori's shouted "Don't!" was too late. As the dogs went shrieking off in all directions; blood dripping from the knife, from Gregor's hand, pouring freely from his wound--( _blood can make bonds, it seals exchanges, and where something is given, there's always something that takes_ , the lesson came home to Mori with such nightmarish finality, he would never forget, never un-see)-- a mass of blackness leapt quick as lightning arcing between storm clouds, devouring the man's entire form.

It sizzled and sparked, choking Gregor's wails to strangled burbling in his throat. More shadows split off and boiled toward Mori, who couldn't dodge quick enough; a mere lick of black ice against his arm left a spot of burning frostbite, sudden pain so intense it sucked the breath from him, and in that instant he knew.

Gregor wasn't the storm he'd seen coming. The plague on the estate, the hounds; those weren't the predators he'd feared all these months. It was this unnameable chaos, this shapeless entity which may once have been something human, something alive, but now existed solely to destroy all within its reach. 

With utter clarity, he understood that once this evil was done with him, it would go for Onuma next, and then go seething down to the river, where Arai and Kuki-chan would be waiting, helpless.

No matter what happened, whether he lived through the fight or not, Mori knew he could not let this darkness past him.

"Onuma!" he shouted over the din, spinning back from the twisting blackness and raising his staff straight with both hands, setting his feet, drawing on all his will, all his power, and his staggering, blinding need to save the others, because this was what he was for, this was why he had survived; every lesson and hardship and gift of his life had brought him to this final threshold.

He clenched his staff and released everything within him, driving it all down in a mighty thrust, into the ground, with a last roar tearing out from his chest. "RUN!"

It was a shockwave, blowing out in all directions, rocking the earth at his feet, exploding some twenty meters of hedge into a rain of twigs, grass, dirt clods and shredded leaves. The trees groaned as they bent back, swaying; dense flocks of birds took to the sky in a flapping cacophony, and far away upriver, there was a muffled boom and roar that sounded vaguely familiar, but maybe that was only the roaring in his ears.

As the dust and leaf fragments settled, Mori slowly blinked around him. He spotted one of the hounds, laying on its side some ways off. Stunned, still breathing. 

He looked down at the crater in the ground, himself swaying at its center. He relaxed his knuckles, breathed, and his staff disintegrated to splinters in his hands.

Of Gregor, and the flickering mass of deadly blackness, Mori saw nothing.

Then something snatched his collar, yanking him back off his feet and Mori twisted instinctively, arms pinwheeling just as he came face to face with Onuma, furiously hauling him back toward the underbrush, muttering, "Can't believe no one taught you to retreat, idiot, get a move on!"

"Path," Mori gasped, stumbling to get his legs under him.  
"Shortcut," Onuma snapped back, prodding and shoving until Mori's brain engaged the rest of him, and he finally started to run.


	40. Chapter 40

"At some point soon," Onuma gasped, looking over at Mori from under the loosened fall of his hair, "you and I are going to have a talk."

They were at the bank, where Mori had just collapsed to his hands and knees, breath heaving, wondering how he was going to get up. It was just a few more steps, slide down the bank, and there was the canoe, already half in the water. But his body had just given out on him; gravity dragging him down to the grass. He'd never felt so heavy, so empty, in his life.

"Come on, no sense stopping now," Onuma grumbled, getting his elbows under Mori's armpits, and hauling him up with a grunt. "You've done the hard part already." Mori couldn't have summoned the strength to speak if his life had depended on it. All he could do was try to keep upright, staggering along with Onuma to the edge of the bank, where his knees folded again.

Onuma slid down first, and Mori let himself tumble down after, banging his elbows, barely keeping his head from thumping the wet rocks. They both had to take another breather there, and that was when Mori actually looked at the canoe; seeing Kuki-chan standing in the center, petrified someplace between fear and overwhelming relief, brandishing one oar like a halberd. In front of her, Arai was sitting slumped over the center brace. Mori stared at his bent back, until he was sure he saw breathing, that it wasn't just a trick of his eyes.

And then he saw the water. Rushing the side of the canoe in urgent little wavelets, spilling up the gravel shore, covering the dry rocks even as he watched. He managed a noise, to get Onuma's attention, and raised an elbow toward the water.

"It's rising," Onuma nodded, frowning. "Looks like somebody....opened a dam somewhere." On those last words he turned a grave look on Mori, who remembered Arai's mention of the stuck sluice gate, and that boom and roar he'd heard after slamming his staff into the earth.

Both men's eyes widened, and they both spoke at the same moment: "Flood."

Mori got to his feet with Onuma's help, and lurched into the boat, while Onuma pulled the stake and rope he'd used to secure it.  
"Takahashi-san," he called to Kuki-chan. "Have you ever paddled a canoe before?"  
The girl shook her head vigorously. "No, Onuma-sama."  
"I can--," Mori offered, but Onuma shot him an uncompromising glare.

"You can barely sit up. Get in the middle with the kid, and don't tip the boat." To Kuki-chan, he spoke more graciously, evidently trying to soothe her. "Takahashi-san can learn paddling in no time. Just sit on the bench--ah, the other way around, please. That's it, now scoop the water from front to back."

The girl did her best to comply, and as Onuma gave her some hurried advice on the rudiments of steering, while shoving the canoe into the swirling water, Mori crawled unsteadily to the center of the boat, where Arai was.

He tried to help the unconscious young man stretch out, so they could both be comfortable, but only succeeded in pulling Arai back, off the center brace before his strength failed him. He collapsed slowly sideways in the rocking canoe, Arai's head in the crook of his shoulder, and the last things he remembered were the cloudy white sky overhead, the echoing slap of turbulent water against the side of the boat, and the undertone of urgency to Onuma's patient instructions.

**

It was like surfacing from a deep, silent pool. Someone prodding at his head, aching crick in his neck, and right arm tingling with pins and needles. His first disconnected thought was to wonder how he could possibly be floating, when his body weighed more than the whole earth. Just rolling his eyelids open was like trying to lift one side of a barn with his bare hands.

"Hey, you still with us?" It was Onuma, poking Mori's head with the toe of his boot.  
Mori groaned, tried to roll over, found that he couldn't. Wondered what in the hell Onuma had convinced him to drink this time, because god, he felt worse than death. And then his eyes focused properly on the leafy ceiling passing lazily overhead, and Arai stirred against his shoulder, and all at once, Mori was fully awake.

He lifted his aching, impossibly heavy head, and looked down to check on Arai. Eyes rolling behind the purplish crepe-thin skin of his lids, the shape of his bones standing out as white and stark as the dry curves of a seashell. But alive, in his arms, and the enormity of that miracle eclipsed everything for Mori.

Somewhere behind the fog of waking, he had a thousand questions wanting answers, entire cartloads of worries and fears yet to face, and a future that was nothing but a blank white scroll unspooling before him. But as he laid his fingers to Arai's forehead, warm but not so fiery hot as before; as he squirmed up to his elbow and smelled the mossy green river water, splashing past the boat, Mori felt like no question or fear in the world could trouble him, at this exact moment.

He had lived through the worst, somehow, and Arai had been saved. That dark, haunted place was well behind them now, he need never see it or think on it again. They had survived, and as Onuma had put it earlier, the hard part was done.

"He doing all right?" asked Onuma, paddling steadily above Mori's head.  
"I think the fever's going down. Where are we?"  
"A ways out, still. I figure we'll dock at the shrine. The doctor's clinic is bound to be packed, but I think I can talk the monks into giving us a place for the night, at least. If that's all right with you."

"That's fine." He looked to the front of the boat, where Kuki-chan was dipping an oar in now and then, to keep them on-course. If he'd been out for as long as he suspected, she was probably exhausted by now.

"Kuki-chan, would you like a break? I can paddle for awhile," Mori offered.

"Please don't worry, Morinozuka-sama. You should rest some more," the girl answered, half-turning to give him a look of concern.  
"Takahashi-san has become an expert with the canoe today," Onuma said warmly, and the girl quickly turned back around, with a pink flush creeping over her cheeks. "I do believe she's a natural at it."

"Please, Onuma-sama is too kind. I--I only hope to be useful, to thank Onuma-sama and Morinozuka-sama for saving us today." With another quick glance back, she added, "I hope Arai-kun is okay?"

The young man in question was shifting against Mori, frowning faintly in his sleep, and clutching a fold of Mori's shirt in one fist.   
"I hope so too," Mori said quietly.

"Takahashi-san has been telling me some interesting things," said Onuma, and Mori was finally able to connect the name to the girl's father, who he now recalled had married into Hito-sama's family. Trust Onuma to keep track of everyone's proper names, he thought.

"She said herself and Arai-kun were the only ones left there. The last survivors took off late last night, without them."  
"Oh, no, Onuma-sama. I'm sorry. But we stayed. Kanahage-san asked if we would go. But Arai-kun couldn't leave. And since--since Ikasu-san was..." The girl trailed off for a moment, gazing down at the water off the left side, her profile etched with sadness. "There wasn't anybody to help Arai-kun. So I stayed."

"That was very brave," Mori told her solemnly. "And I will always be grateful to you."  
Kuki-chan blinked back at him in honest surprise, before it apparently dawned on her, that Mori was cradling Arai closely in one arm, with unmistakable care. She observed the two of them for a moment with wide eyes, before the tiniest shadow of a smile touched her cheeks.

"Arai-kun said Morinozuka-sama was his very good friend." She turned back to her paddling, peering at the river ahead, as she added, "I'm glad, that Arai-kun can be with his friend again."

Kuki-chan had a wealth of interesting information, and at Onuma's prompting and Mori's questions, she divulged all she could remember. How Arai had stopped writing letters at Ikasu's warning, because Gregor had taken an interest in the young man's work. According to Ikasu, it would look bad if Arai were caught practicing his lessons, and sending letters back and forth. And since Gregor was around the hothouse at all hours, Kuki-chan said, Arai had decided not to risk sneaking around.

She and Onuma were both a bit mystified at Ikasu's reasoning, but Mori thought he understood the concern. "He was given a book, with pictures of Gregor's flowers," he explained. "It was a diary, that used to belong to someone else. Gregor didn't think anyone could read it. Probably didn't think his gardeners could read at all..." He stopped before his sudden upsurge of loathing led him to say something indecent in front of Kuki-chan.

"What did it matter, whether anybody read it?" asked Onuma.  
"Someone wrote their secrets, in that diary. I don't think Gregor knew for certain. But Ikasu might have. Maybe he wanted to make sure it wasn't taken back."

"You lost me," said Onuma, and Mori turned around and gave a quick head-shake, pointing back over his shoulder, at Kuki-chan. He needed to tell Onuma the story about the foreign lady, and her murder. How Gregor was the same man who'd chased the fox onto his property, and either arranged or simply concealed that woman's death, and then came back a year or so later and killed nearly everyone in his employ. Mainly, Mori wanted to get it all out of his head and sort all his speculations, with Onuma to help him make sense of it. But he'd just as soon not start telling ghost stories in front of Kuki-chan.

Onuma gave him a curious look, but shrugged his shoulders, silently consenting to Mori's inexplicable reticence for the time being.

The troubles at the estate had started--as far as Kuki-chan knew--shortly after Gregor had taken up residence. It hadn't seemed serious at first, and everyone passed off the odd headaches and strained feelings as personal idiosyncrasies. The main house staff had been affected first, with poor sleep, bad dreams, and minor household accidents. Of course everyone was anxious, now that the Master of the house was in residence, and given the stringent standards of the house, no one thought anything amiss of the constant tension.

And then a party of guests arrived, and one of the housemaids came down with symptoms of a bad cold, which never got better. Late one night, Kuki-chan had overheard the head butler arguing in the back service hallway with one of the valets, and a week or so later they came to blows, and the valet was badly injured. Then a kitchen maid poured a tub of boiling water on herself, one of the grooms was kicked in the head by a startled horse, and a chambermaid fell down a flight of steps and broke her arm.

Well out of the Master's hearing, and that of the head staff, people began to talk. The place was unlucky, always had been. No one knew when it had been last occupied, but the stablemaster remembered his grandfather telling stories he'd heard from his father. About some long-forgotten noble family--the founders of the estate--who had come to ruin here. A father killed, a daughter vanished, and at least one other man dead.

"Who were the family?" Mori asked at this point, thinking how remarkably familiar this seemed, but Kuki-chan only shrugged.  
"So sorry, Morinozuka-sama. No one mentioned any name."

She went on the describe the gradual deterioration of the household, over the following weeks. People suffering nausea, excruciating headaches, pain in their bones and joints. One of the cooks burst into uncontrollable sobbing one night, and finally had to be taken back to her quarters and sedated with strong drink. The woman could not say precisely what she was weeping about, but she kept at it, off and on, for several days.

And then one morning, she was found hanging from the rafters, in her bedroom.

"Why didn't anyone send word to the village?" asked Mori, shocked, and finding he was not so numb to the awfulness of that place by now, as he had first thought.

Kuki-chan seemed to shrink a little on her seat, ducking uncomfortably. "Ah....His Lordship. Everyone said he was very strict. Before he came, some of us were allowed to go home to visit for a few days. But after he came, it was forbidden. I think--well, some people said he looked at the letters we sent, or made his servant read them for him. When that groom got hurt, he wouldn't permit anyone to take the cart, or any horses, so the groom could go to a doctor."

"What, you mean they just left him to die?" Mori asked. He'd been remembering the sound of Gregor's screams and his death-rattle, as that apparition had seized and consumed him. At the time he would have pitied anyone suffering in such a way, and had he anticipated the consequences of Gregor spraying his blood all over, he wanted to think he would have strongly urged the man not to.

But now hearing the ugly details of Gregor's tenancy, and his utter lack of sympathy or compassion for those who had served his house in good faith, Mori didn't feel quite so badly for not having tried to spare him.

"I'm sorry, I'm not certain," Kuki-chan answered. "I heard some say that one of the stable boys, and someone else tried to carry the groom back home. But no one said what happened to them." She sighed, and set to with her paddle again. "I've been praying they made it, though."

Being mostly confined to the main house, and plenty busy with all the trouble there, Kuki-chan hadn't been aware of Ikasu's illness until Arai had also fallen sick. By then, the head cook had dropped dead suddenly, the guests had all fled for the town they'd come from, followed by a sizable portion of the rest of the staff , slipping away by ones and twos into the night. Those that were left were ill, or injured, or like Kuki-chan--doing their best to keep the house running, and care for their fallen friends.

She'd found Arai in the kitchen two nights ago, raiding the larder to make soup and tea for Ikasu, though he looked in terrible shape himself. Fearing Gregor might punish the young man for rifling through the house, Kuki-chan had taken over making meals for him, and the head groundskeeper. But then Ikasu had passed in the night, and all but a few staff had stolen away with Gregor's carriage and horses.

"They made it to the village," Onuma put in. "And I gave the last group the cart I brought."  
Still facing forward, Kuki-chan nodded, then sniffed and gave a wavering sigh. "Thank goodness. Thank goodness you came." She laid the oar across her knees and brought her sleeve up to dab at her face, and Mori felt a nudge at his shoulder from Onuma.

"Here, pass this up," he said quietly, holding out his handkerchief to Mori. Mori had to extract himself from Arai first, dragging his pack closer so he could rest Arai's head on it, before leaning forward as far as he was able, and tugging Kuki-chan's sleeve.

She sniffed some more and thanked him, and since he was already sitting up, Mori convinced her to hand over the paddle and let him take a turn for awhile.

**

When Mori had awakened, around midday, the sky had been densely overcast, and over the next few hours those clouds gathered thicker, pushed in over the mountains by a gusting breeze. Where the river had been mainly quiet, going through that eerily still forest the day before, now it was swollen and rushing along from whatever huge volume of water Mori had somehow unleashed at that estate. Onuma's guess was that he'd broken the dam on a sizable reservoir, which would have watered the estate fields through dry seasons. He thought if the sluice gate near the fields had been stuck for a week or more, then the reservoir may have been past capacity, to begin with.

Now, it looked like they'd be getting some rain dumped on them as well. For awhile, given the swiftness of the current through the forest, Mori had hoped they might make it to the village shrine before nightfall. But as the treetops closed in, and the clouds overhead darkened, it appeared as though evening would be coming earlier than usual.

As they drifted downriver, Mori began keeping an eye on the banks, and the gray still forest beyond. It had been quite late before last night's haunting had started up, but Mori couldn't help wondering if that was only because that extraordinary stranger had been trailing him all day. Whether the exquisitely robed man was now escorting them back, Mori had no idea. 

Until proven otherwise, it seemed safest to assume their passage was unguarded, and just because he wasn't alone this time, he couldn't get complacent. Onuma may be a splendid fighter with uncanny aim, but he couldn't very well help Mori against a threat he couldn't see. And Mori knew that he himself would be next to useless for defending them all. His staff had been destroyed at the estate (making that two good staffs he'd lost because of Gregor, he thought, somewhat resentfully), and his three or four hours of unconsciousness had only restored him enough to sit upright and paddle. Anything more strenuous, and he'd most likely collapse.

"How's it looking out there?" Onuma asked quietly behind him.  
"Empty," Mori answered, glancing at Kuki-chan, who had earlier slipped from the front seat, to sit on the canoe's bottom, arms wrapped around her bent legs, and head resting on her knees, looking like nothing so much as a child who'd stayed up far past her bedtime, during a festival. Though truly she wasn't a child, at all. As young and flighty as she'd always seemed, Kuki-chan's report of the estate had proved her far stronger than Mori had ever appreciated.

"Was it empty yesterday?" asked Onuma.  
"I thought it was. Until--I'm not sure. Midnight, I think. Then I heard things. And saw things."  
"You'll have to tell me about those things, sometime." Glancing back, Mori saw Onuma giving him a look suggesting that he expected Mori to tell him a great many things, quite soon.  
"Hm," he said, by way of agreement, turning his attention on Arai. "You think we should wake him up?" It concerned him that Arai hadn't so much as rolled himself over, since Mori had laid him down. He had no way of knowing whether such heavy sleep was a bad sign, or a good one.

"I don't imagine he's slept much, in awhile. It's probably the best thing for him, right now."

"I should have gone there, when he stopped writing. I should have guessed something was wrong." It had preyed on him ever since Mizuko-chan had shown him the broken stone, and now knowing how much Arai had suffered while Mori was feeling sorry for himself, he burned with shame.

"What would you have done? Barged onto that lunatic's property, unprepared? And then what?"

Mori shrugged, and went back to paddling. Onuma's point was very good. His chances of convincing Arai to leave his job a month ago would have been slim to nil. Gregor might have had several people on his side, to evict Mori from the property when he'd arrived. And as far as preparation went, he knew he hadn't possessed the necessary endurance, strength, or power back then, which had saved him that morning.

Nonetheless, he couldn't quiet his misgivings, growing too close for comfort to a sense of failure. If only he had known. If only his dreams had given him more than distant hints and signposts. Having the proper knowledge, he felt he would more than happily have given the cottage, orchard, and land over to Arai six months ago, and none of this would have happened.

On the other hand, if he hadn't made the mistake of letting Arai leave for Gregor's estate, what would they have learned? Would Mori have ever suspected that Arai's talent was truly the symptom of a terrible vulnerability? Would he have met that man in the forest again--a distant kinsman of Arai's, which was something else to think about--and learned that someone else believed Arai was important?

But those things hinged on an even more difficult question: would he have believed his dreams, if they had been more specific? After awakening, he'd barely remembered the one where he'd met the water spirit at that rickety bridge. As for the second dream, most of its detail had been completely overshadowed by the sight of the fox's pelt on that cart, at the end.

And it wasn't the dreams that had first impelled him, anyway. It was the real, tangible evidence of trouble, that broken stone, which had finally spurred him into action. So even if his dreams had been plenty specific, there was a better than fair chance he still would have waited to see hard evidence in the waking world, before acting on them.

As it was, he didn't feel particularly vindicated that a few things from those dreams had come to pass. Recognizing the bridge, the crossroads, and the water spirit had all been useful. The image of the shrine gate he'd dreamed at the other side of the bridge, that made sense now too. It was on that side of the bridge, where he'd finally put the disciplines instilled in him since childhood, to their intended use. Just as the old priest Jyuuzou-sama had told him, the temple gates had stayed with him.

But what good was a prophetic dream, if it only showed him how things would look when disaster struck, rather than helping him avert the disaster to begin with? 

That was the main problem, he thought. The manner of the foresight suggested a certain inevitability which Mori could not comfortably reconcile himself to. As though all that had happened was fated; he served a function within the chain of events, but he had no power to prevent them.

"What would you think," he asked Onuma, "if you dreamed something that happened later on. If you dreamed....say, your deck was burning, and you put the fire out with your washing water. And then that happened. What would you think?"

"I think I'd start paying very careful attention to my dreams," Onuma answered.  
"Would it bother you, that you didn't dream how the fire started?"  
"You mean, so I could have prevented my deck burning? I suppose, yes. That's why I'd be minding my dreams from then on."

"But what if you only dreamed things you couldn't prevent?"  
Onuma considered this quietly for a bit, then chuckled. "Shouldn't I be grateful that I put the fire out, before it burned my whole house? At least I stopped it from being worse than what I'd dreamed about."

Now it was Mori's turn to consider. "That's true."  
"It's a bit like knowing your opponent's capabilities in fight, don't you think? It doesn't mean you'll win. It doesn't mean he can't surprise you. But you know when he drops his left shoulder, he's going for an upstroke, and you can do something about it."

" _Do you know the difference between power and strength?_ " Every time Mori thought he had a good answer for that, he discovered what a diabolical rhetorical question it really was. It was sheer wild power pouring out of him, that had blown apart that dark ravenous mass, whatever was left of Gregor, and a chunk of hedge half the width of the pear orchard. But it had taken all Mori's strength to summon and channel it. Another kind of power enabled him to interact with ghosts and spirits in various forms, while strength maintained his composure through the experience.

If dreams which hinted at the future were the result of power, then where did the strength come in, there? Was it--as Onuma seemed to suggest--the ability to make the most of his advantage? Was it the fortitude it took to focus on what he knew; what he was able to do about the future, rather than what he couldn't?

If that was the case, then he had some accounting to do. He should look at which signs from his dreams had taken place already, versus those that hadn't. He had dreamed about the bridge, and had seen it. Likewise with the water spirit. His dreams had taken place in an oppressive, stormy atmosphere and he had certainly seen plenty of that. He had dreamed about Arai wearing the same robes as that mysterious man in the forest, and then that man had mentioned some kind of relation to Arai. Whatever that meant.

The field of tree stumps and the buzzing, voracious blackness hadn't appeared exactly the way he'd seen in that first dream, but the site where he'd taken his stand against Gregor was close enough, probably. There had been ghosts and voices in the woods, near the river. And of course it had all come to a head during Obon.

There were two significant items from his dreams which he felt he ought to be able to make sense of, but couldn't yet. One was the appearance of that flat eroded stone, which had somehow come into Arai's possession, from where Mori had left it last summer, for the fox. As soon as Arai was capable of coherent discussion, Mori certainly intended to bring it up with him.

But in the meantime, there was something else.

"That lure I reminded you about," he asked Onuma. "Did you have to use it yet?"  
"I keep wondering if I'm supposed to. I don't guess you have any hints?"  
"I just dreamed that you told me to remind you about it."  
"The old man--that ghost of yours. He said something about luck, right? When he gave it to you."  
"When nothing but luck will help you," Mori corrected.

"I've gotten by on my wits all right, so far," said Onuma. "And a knife. Considering where I used the knife, I'm not sure I want to see the situation that only luck would help." 

"Did you see...." Mori paused, looking at Kuki-chan, trying to check for sure if she was still sleeping. Watching the even rise and fall of her shoulders, he went on, in a lower tone. "Did you see what happened, after that?"

"You mean the thing that came after the two of you? What in the hell was that?"  
Surprised, Mori looked back. "You saw it?"

"I thought it was a trick of the light." Onuma scanned the river banks, with a distant look of recollection. "It looked like....a heat mirage. Or when you burn incense, and the smoke makes a shadow on the wall. I don't think I would've noticed it, if you and the dogs hadn't been watching it. And if all the hair hadn't stood up on the back of my neck."

"I never knew a name for it. But I think it's what happens, when all that's left of a person's spirit, is hatred."  
Onuma looked at him curiously. "Strong enough, that even I could see? Hell of an argument for not hanging onto a grudge, I guess."  
"I always thought so," Mori said. His skin still felt raw, in the spot where the apparition had brushed him. He had yet to push his sleeve back and inspect the area, but it felt like the places where the skin of his hands cracked open in winter, after too many days of shoveling snow, and thawing his hands by the wood stove.

Given what had inflicted the injury, he ought to have it tended to, just to be safe. But since there wasn't anything he could do about it for the time being, he'd just as soon not know how bad it looked.

Plus, there was someone in this boat in far worse shape than him. Every time he looked back to see Arai, so pale and thin that it drove a pronged spike of fear, remorse, and pity through Mori's insides, he was seized with the irrational urge to pound the sides of the canoe to make it go faster. To ply his one oar with a ferocious energy he didn't actually have. All he had to console him, was the thought that this was faster than walking, faster than a cart drawn by an exhausted horse, already laden with the other refugees from the estate.

But the river wasn't fast enough, and the day's light was fading too quickly, with the heavy clouds crowding lower and lower overhead, and the thickening gloom between the trees.  
"I don't suppose you have a lantern?" he asked Onuma.  
"I did. Gave it to the group who took the cart, though. Got a couple candles. Not much good with this breeze, I'm afraid."

"Can you navigate this part of the river, in the dark?"  
"Navigating isn't a problem. As long as we keep to the middle we won't run aground. And you can tell where the current's strong, and where it drops off. The only trick will be finding the fork that runs to the back of the temple. When we're close, we'll need to slow down and light a candle."

"You'll know when we're close?"  
"The fork is in that big horseshoe bend halfway between the open moor and the village. I expect we'll start seeing the village lights before the fork."

Mori nodded, remembering that open flatland he'd run through yesterday. He aimed a few swipes with the oar to keep them straight, anxious for the trees to start thinning out.


	41. Chapter 41

As carefully as Onuma and Mori both looked out for potential trouble, it was Arai who first warned them of it.

They had just left the treeline for the open moor, the flooding river filling what yesterday had been a near-empty channel full of thin rivulets. For the first time, Mori could see the gravid thunderheads, massing dark over the mountains to the west, swallowing the afternoon sun, and turning the whole sky the color of wet slate.

It seemed they were moving slower than before, or else Mori's energy was waning again. He was paddling steadily now, stroking the oar through what felt more like thick soup than water; left, right, right, left, left. It didn't take long for him to break a sweat in the warm sticky air, and every few minutes he had to break rhythm to wipe his forehead, before the sweat stung his eyes.

He turned about to ask Onuma whether the river didn't seem a bit sluggish to him, when he noticed that Arai had curled himself up in a ball, wide eyes staring at his knees, unblinking.  
"Hey." Mori quickly twisted around to lean over Arai. "What's wrong? You okay?"

"It's coming. I can hear it." His eyes stared blindly, and there was no inflection to that soft, near-whisper; it sounded as though Arai were reading off words to himself. But Mori heard every word, distinctly, and almost fumbled the oar in his hand when a hard shiver ran through him.

"What do you hear?" He tucked the oar between his knees, reaching out for Arai's leg, thinking he could be delirious again, that his fever must have spiked. No sooner did he touch the young man, than Arai squeezed his eyes shut, clenching his arms tight around his knees with a whimper, just as Onuma thrust his oar straight down in the water to halt the canoe.

"Shit."  
Mori glanced up, saw Onuma glaring at the river ahead--the river which had appeared perfectly normal just a second ago--and looking back over his shoulder, saw a rising wall of gray fog, seeping out of the underbrush and cattails to block their way through.

Mori's first reaction wasn't worry, so much as the powerful urge to groan in exasperation. It was hardly a surprise that some other bizarre manifestation would show up to impede them. Onuma had warned him, and that man from last night had warned him; this wilderness was not friendly to people, and neither was the season of ghosts and spirits. There was a reason the living grouped together to observe Obon, and honor their ancestors who had passed on. It was treated as a festival, but truly it was a ritual of appeasement.

And here they were, outside of the protection of a community, well past the boundaries of civilization, in a place and time where human rules and the reasons of the living couldn't help them.

Still, if he wasn't so worn out, Mori would probably be severely annoyed. He had one very straightforward goal, and at the moment it felt like one thing after another was willfully conspiring against him.

"That isn't normal, is it?"  
If it was any consolation, Onuma looked just as aggravated as Mori felt. "Not for this weather. Aim for that bank over there." Onuma pointed with his oar, and just as Mori was grabbing his own oar up, keeping a concerned eye on the slow-building fog bank, he realized something.

"We're not moving." Neither of them was paddling, and the canoe was barely bobbing where it sat dead in the water.  
"The current dropped off a minute ago," Onuma nodded, digging his oar into the water and gesturing impatiently at Mori to do the same, before calling out louder, "Takahashi-san? I'm sorry to trouble you, but we need to stop a moment."

Kuki-chan lifted her head, blinking around confusedly. "Oh. Are we back already?"  
"Not quite. We're going to tie off at this bank for a moment, so Morinozuka-san can take your place."  
Mori aimed a frown back over his shoulder, and Onuma answered in a tight undertone, "You want to send her first, into that?"

On the bottom of the canoe, Arai winced, and let out another soft sound of distress, and as soon as they bumped against the low bank, Mori turned about to reach for him, while Onuma drove his stake into dirt, and started tying off.

"It's all right, you don't have to worry," Mori murmured quietly, leaning over Arai, clasping his shoulder, and then reaching down for his pale hand. In contrast with his forehead, the hand felt clammy and cool, and on some nameless urgent impulse, Mori pressed it between his palms, trying to rub some feeling of life back into it. 

"You know I'm right here, right?" he said. "Me and Onuma-san, and Kuki-chan. We can take care of you."  
"Don't go in there," Arai whispered, squeezing Mori's hand back feebly, eyes still shut tight "It's too dark in there."

Those words were too disturbingly familiar to be a coincidence. Whether it was delirium making Arai relive his nightmares, or something far more threatening to them all, Mori wasn't sure, though he instinctively favored the latter. Either way it was acutely painful to watch, made more so by the knowledge that he couldn't comfort the young man, and face this new trouble at the same time.

"Onuma-sama, what's wrong?" Kuki-chan perched anxiously on the front seat of the canoe, twisting her fingers in her lap.  
"We've got a fog coming in. I'd like you to trade places with Morinozuka-san, if you don't mind."  
"Should we just try to walk?" Mori asked, but Onuma jerked his chin out toward the moor.  
"It's coming up all over. For now, I think we're safest right here."

Mori looked out past the bank, and indeed, on both sides, the fog was rising thick from the ground. Then he saw past Onuma's shoulder, and actually felt all the blood leave his face.

"Behind us, too," he whispered. Within moments, they'd been surrounded, and even as he watched, the dense gray wall was closing in on them. Worse, his ear caught the muffled tinging of a glass bell, from somewhere; the direction was impossible to pick out. "Did you hear that?"

Onuma slipped a hand up his sleeve, eyes sharp on their surroundings. "Hear what?"

"I hear it," Arai said, soft and broken, and Mori couldn't stand it anymore.  
"Can you go to the front, instead?" he asked Onuma, pulling Arai up into his arms.

Onuma eyed him with concerned skepticism. "Can you paddle us all forward, by yourself? Whoever's in front will need their hands free, I expect."

"I'll do it," Mori answered, because exhausted or not, there wasn't any other choice. If a terror was coming, there was no way he was leaving Arai alone through it. He'd done it once, out of shameful ignorance, but never again.

With another look around, Onuma sighed, and pushed himself up carefully. "Hate to say this, but it looks like we're getting down to nothing but luck, here. Keep your head down, I'm coming over."

The canoe bobbed and tipped in the still water, as they all re-sorted themselves, and Mori had to push up into Onuma's former seat, to keep the weight safely distributed. He coaxed and dragged Arai up, to sit between his knees, and though Arai was drifting in and out of coherence, he didn't let go of his hold on Mori's trouser leg, one arm curled around Mori's calf, head tipped to his knee.

The fog ventured in closer, until Mori could feel its damp cool breath down his neck, and they couldn't make out more than two meters of glassy water in any direction. It was unpleasant, claustrophobic, but beyond the impression of being shut in a closet lined with wet sheets, Mori hadn't yet detected any specific menace from the fog itself.

What might be lurking within the fog was another matter altogether, which was why he hurriedly dug in his pocket, when Onuma asked whether he still had any salt left on him. After a brief discussion of their options, they used Mori's salt to make a line around the bottom of the canoe, since Mori guessed that so long as the line closed, it counted for a circle. Because he'd never tested the theory, Onuma dug out his own salt as a back-up measure, and put Kuki-chan in charge of it, since she was in the middle.

Then Onuma dug in his shirt and pulled out the pouch holding the minnow lure, turning about to consult with Mori. "You agree it's time to try this?"

"It's that, or we wait until--" Mori began, suddenly distracted by another brief shiver from that invisible glass bell, sounding not so distant as before, and the feeling of Arai going rigid between his knees.

"Never mind," he said decisively. "Use it."

As Onuma knotted a makeshift fishing line from the cord he'd used to secure his bag, Mori attempted to reassure Kuki-chan, who was darting looks between them, increasingly anxious and mystified.  
"It's like a good luck charm," he explained, gesturing toward Onuma. "We might not need it, but just in case."

The girl blinked at him, undecided as to whether this was good news or not. Then she looked down at Arai, with the expression of someone growing resigned to misfortune as their lot. "This....isn't a real fog, is it?"

"Oh, it's real enough," said Onuma. "It just shouldn't be here."  
"Everyone says that fog in the forest is dangerous. That it hides bad spirits. Grandfather says some people get lost in the fog, and never come back." She looked solemnly up at Mori, as if hoping he might tell her this wasn't true, but not really expecting him to.

"People can get lost just as easily in broad daylight," Mori reminded her. "There doesn't have to be fog involved, or anything else."  
"But Morinozuka-sama poured salt all around us. So there might be bad spirits, yes?"

"Are you afraid?" Mori asked, since--given their surroundings, and the topic at hand--Kuki-chan seemed remarkably reasonable.   
Again, she looked between Mori and Onuma. "If I were alone, I think I would be afraid. But since Morinozuka-sama and Onuma-sama aren't afraid, then I won't be either."

"We appreciate your faith in us." Onuma smiled over his shoulder at Kuki-chan, but Mori could see the edge of strain beneath that smile. Now the fog hovered an arm's reach off the front of the boat, and it wouldn't be long before they were entirely swallowed in it. "You ready for me to drop this in?" he asked Mori, who lay his hand on Arai's shoulder, braced himself, and nodded.

Watching the lure descend toward the water, Mori's eye caught--just for an instant--a bright wink of pure silvery light off the minnow's scales. Like brilliant sunshine flashing off water, only since there was no sun, he couldn't think what the spark was reflecting.

And then the lure reached the sulky gloom of the still river, sinking below the surface, plainly visible as it went lower, and lower. From where he sat, the water all around them--what little he could see, anyway--was utterly opaque, like smoke-charred glass. Except for where the lure hung, suspended on Onuma's line.

The second time it flashed, Mori blinked, and rubbed his eyes. But then he caught Onuma doing the same, and knew it wasn't just him. By now, the fog had enclosed the canoe completely, stopping right at its edges, all the way around. On Mori's left and right, it was like a solid wall of dark gray, and yet he could still see where the line dropped into the water, and the silver lure hanging in its own tiny pocket of light.

For several moments, they waited in silence, to see what would happen next. But nothing at all happened. The fog stayed where it was, the canoe sat dead still in the water, and all Mori could hear was his breathing, and Arai's occasional troubled sigh, hitching softly. Whenever he heard that, he would stroke the young man's tousled hair, and then he lay the back of his hand to Arai's cheek. Still warmer than he would have liked.

It seemed to him like something should be happening. He started to tell Onuma, maybe they should try to bait the line, like the ghost of that priest had done, but no sooner had he gotten the first word out, than Onuma put up a hand.

"Shh. Look." He pointed down at the fog, off the front of the boat, and it took a second before Mori realized, he wasn't just looking at a dense gray sheet, he could see the water again. There was a smudge of light down there, growing as the fog thinned to nothing.

At first it was dim, shapeless, but as it grew stronger (closer, actually, he realized), the glow took on a definite warm cast, like the pool of yellow light from a hanging lantern. It wavered and rippled in the water, throwing refractions against the surface, and then the source of the light--a vivid scarlet fish with wide round eyes glowing gold--swam into view.

"There's more," Onuma murmured quietly, looking off to another broken patch in the fog, where a group of wavering lights were swimming toward them. Looking over his shoulder, Mori spotted others, coming up steadily from behind.

"Oh--they're beautiful," whispered Kuki-chan, peering spellbound over the side of the boat. "Just like the story." Catching Mori and Onuma's questioning looks, she said, "Grandfather told me about it. The red fish who swam to the temple, during a famine a long, long time ago. The river used to flood all the fields and the village, and then it would run dry. But when the monks started feeding the fish, then the river behaved, and the crops didn't drown and wither any more."

Mori and Onuma exchanged looks over her head, and Mori was sure they were thinking the same thing--that it must have been Yamato-sama, the head priest, who had fed the kinmedai.   
"When did this happen?" Mori asked.  
"Ah..." Kuki-chan tilted her head, considering. "I'm not sure. Grandfather says his grandfather told him the story. It was before Grandfather was born, when his father was younger, I think." She looked back to the kinmedai, now schooling around the silver lure, filling the water with strong, steady light that radiated upward, as though the setting sun had peeked through the clouds and fog, in this one small space.

"I wonder if they're hungry?" she mused.  
"I wonder if they'll stay with us, if we feed them," Onuma answered, before gesturing to Kuki-chan. "Would you mind looking in my pack? I had some extra rice, and bean paste."

"There's plenty extra in mine," Mori offered, earning a narrow look from Onuma.  
"When was the last time you ate? I know not since I saw you this morning."  
"Not sure," Mori said, thinking it was probably sometime yesterday evening. Then he looked down at Arai, and realized neither of them had eaten all day.

While Kuki-chan found Onuma's bento, Mori pulled his own pack up into his lap, digging out what food he'd hastily thrown together before rushing out of the cottage yesterday morning. Rice, some dried fruit. The soggy rolled eggs wouldn't be edible, but the pickled radish and carrots looked all right. Carefully, he set the box down next to his foot, and then got Arai by the shoulders, trying to wake him and sit him up straight.

"I know you'd rather sleep," he said, when Arai made a soft complaining sound. "But you should try to eat something. Look," holding up a dried apricot. "You want this?"  
"What--." Arai frowned, trying to hold his head up, and blinked slowly at Mori's hand. "M'tired."

"Here, give him some water," Onuma suggested, handing his canteen to Kuki-chan, who crawled closer to Arai, to help.  
When she pulled the cap off, a little water splashed off the top, and Mori recognized the canteen as the same one Onuma had filled at his barge, from the vessel he'd saved since New Years.

"You haven't drank from that one," he noted curiously to Onuma, who was at that moment dropping little balls of mashed rice and bean paste into the water.  
"Didn't want to waste it," he answered, watching the kinmedai. "In case we needed it for something."

"I don't think there's anything special about it," Mori pointed out. "I was drinking it from the well, and bathing in it."   
But Onuma only shrugged. "Maybe, maybe not."

Meanwhile, Kuki-chan was busy trying to coax Arai into waking up enough to drink.   
"You shouldn't go all day without water, Arai-kun. Especially if you're feverish. Please, just a little sip?" She held the canteen up to the young man's mouth, but he shrugged away, trying to lay his head back on Mori's knee.

"Not thirsty," he answered, in tone of weak complaint. But Kuki-chan only patted his shoulder, with the indefatigable assurance of one accustomed to cosseting fretful children.  
"I'm sorry to trouble you, but please try a small drink, and then you can rest. Okay?"

"I don't like it here," came the half-whispered answer. "Can we go?"  
"Soon," Mori murmured, brushing an errant strand of Arai's hair back from his temple. "But please drink something, first."

Arai sighed, his head laying heavy on Mori's leg. "I'll get sick again."  
"No, this is clean water," Kuki-chan told him. "It isn't bad, like before."

"Bad?" Mori asked, and the girl glanced up at him, briefly flustered.  
"Oh. The well water, at the estate, it tasted terrible. Even when it was boiled, no one wanted to drink it." Then she cocked her head, looking back at Arai. "This is good, though. Here--," holding the canteen closer to his face. "It doesn't smell bad at all, see?"

Evidently aware that he wasn't going to be left alone, Arai consented to sniff the water, and then try a taste. Kuki-chan praised him, and then gently badgered him until he drank enough to satisfy her. To her credit, she tried to convince him to eat something as well, but Arai only twisted himself sideways between Mori's knees, hiding his head in the crook of his arm, propped on Mori's leg.

"It's all right," Mori reassured them both. "We'll be back at the village before long." Personally, he had no interest in eating, until they were all safely out of here. He caught Onuma's eye across the boat, watching him expectantly. "You ready?"

"Whenever you are."  
Mori nodded, and pulled out the stake and rope mooring them to the bank, handing them off to Kuki-chan, before taking up his oar. Since the kinmedai had swam up to them, it had been quiet in the fog, but not the sort of quiet that Mori felt inclined to trust.

He pushed off from the bank with a careful prod, mindful of scaring off the fish, and waited as the canoe slowly drifted back toward the middle of the river. To his relief, the kinmedai stayed with them, swimming wide slow circles ahead of the boat, with a few of the fish cruising around to the now-exposed opposite side. Wherever they went, the fog melted back from the water, but Mori noticed that where the kinmedai's golden light no longer reached, the fog gradually drifted back in.

Once he'd judged they were far enough from either bank, he slowly sank his oar into the water and pulled back, taking his best guess at the right direction, and making sure no fish were swimming in the oar's path. It was very slow going at first, with the canoe so heavily loaded, and no current to help them, but the fish kept up, attracted by the lure Onuma kept dangling off the left side, and wriggling up to the surface to snap up the crumbs of food he occasionally dropped.

It seemed Arai must have drifted off again; he leaned heavy and still against Mori's leg, face hidden in the bend of his arm. Mori could only hope that the young man found some relief in sleep, because he was plainly miserable when he was awake. He had yet to see any sign of that resilience he'd grown accustomed to, and though Mori knew that what Arai had endured at that estate would have pushed anyone to their breaking point, it was still deeply disconcerting to see him so completely unlike himself.

He had to believe that Arai could bounce back, though. Given a safe place to rest, proper care, and enough to eat, surely he would recover. Mori would stay right by his side, the entire time, and make sure of it. He would do all that was in his power, to see Arai well and happy again.

"Bear right a bit," Onuma suggested, squinting off to their left. "You're drifting to the bank."  
Mori checked the water for fish, and scooped the oar down a few times, to straighten them out. "Why do you think the current stopped?"

"To bedevil us." Onuma scowled briefly at the water, and then out into the fog. "I'd say I've seen everything now, but I don't dare tempt fate like that."  
"Does this mean the water's backing up, behind us?"

"I'll certainly be happy, if it is."  
Going off Onuma's skeptical tone, Mori asked, "Why?"  
"Because that means we're still on the river."

Feeling a wary chill, Mori left off paddling for a moment, to stare at Onuma's back.  
"But we never left the river," said Kuki-chan, glancing between them. "It's right here."

Mori understood what he meant, though. Remembering those trails he'd found on the other side of the forest, the ones that appeared one day, and were gone hours later. The ones that had led him to unlikely places, which he'd never found again.

On a sudden impulse, he reached down for Arai's shoulder, making sure it was still warm and solid under his hand. The young man didn't stir, even when Mori ran his hand down his back, feeling the sharp knobs of his spine, like stones under the skin. But he was undeniably there, and breathing steadily, and after a few seconds to make sure of that, Mori let out a breath he hadn't been conscious of holding.

"You think we might be lost?" he asked quietly.  
"I think without our friends here, we might be," said Onuma, looking back over his shoulder, to gauge their reaction.  
"You mean, going in circles?" asked Kuki-chan, still confused.

"Something like that," Mori nodded, as Onuma went back to watching the water. He wasn't sure he should try to explain to her, about the strange holes in the world, around this region. The places that people wandered into without realizing it, some never finding their way out. And of course there were those places that found wanderers instead of the other way around, he remembered, looking back down at Arai, as the young man shifted against his leg.

Although according to that man Mori had met the night before, they would certainly know the difference, if that place found them.

"Head right a bit," Onuma directed, and Mori decided to just focus on paddling for now, rather than frighten Kuki-chan with stories of bizarre phenomena which he hardly understood, himself.


	42. Chapter 42

"Can you actually see the bank?" Mori asked Onuma, after an interminable period of paddling aimlessly through the shrouded water, listening for occasional directions. He himself had yet to see either riverbank since pulling up the stake, and that seemed like ages ago, now.

"No, I'm watching the fish out front. You're blind as a mole."  
"What?" Mori blinked.  
"There's always a few swimming in front of us," Onuma explained, still watching the water ahead of them. "Sometimes they change course."

"No, I mean--." Mori broke off and shook his head. The fog must be seeping into his brain, making him hear things.

"You're going in circles," said Kuki-chan, and Mori looked at her sharply. But she only went on gazing down at the water, knees pulled up to her chin.  
"We can't be," he protested. "The river's not that wide."  
Kuki-chan glanced up at him, blinking slowly, as if roused from a daze. "I'm sorry. We can't be what?"

"Going in circles."  
Arai's weight shifted against Mori's leg, as he drew in a shuddering sigh, and Mori patted him absently.  
"Oh," said Kuki-chan, still with that curious look. "Okay."

"You need to get out and walk," said Onuma. Only this time Mori knew it wasn't Onuma, because the man was looking right at him, and his mouth hadn't moved.  
Mori's breath caught, at the same time he felt Arai go rigid under his hand.

"Something wrong?" Onuma asked him, eyes narrowing behind his glasses.  
"You'll never make it out like this," said a voice that wasn't either of Mori's companions, and yet sounded disturbingly close by.

"Yes," Mori answered Onuma, scanning the fog all around them, and still seeing nothing but fog.

"You have to leave the water," instructed the voice.  
"Morinozuka-sama?" Kuki-chan looked worriedly up at him.  
"Bring the child," the voice urged, and Mori--having no doubt at all who that voice was talking about--shook his head emphatically.  
"Absolutely not."

"What do I need to do?" Onuma's voice cut in, sure and calm, as effective as a steadying hand on Mori's shoulder.  
"You don't hear it," he asserted, aware of his pulse racing away, still searching the fog for any sign of the speaker. It was obvious Arai heard it, because he was shaking now, making the same muffled sounds of fright that Mori remembered from his nightmares, before they turned to thrashing and pleading cries.

"What is it? Someone talking?" Onuma asked, taking in Mori and Arai both.  
"Bring the child, and find your way," tempted the voice.

Mori gritted his teeth and nodded to Onuma, just as Arai whimpered, "No--."  
"Precious child--."

"That's enough!" Mori shouted into the blind grayness, hands quivering with rising apprehension (what could he do against this enemy he couldn't see?), hearing his words swallowed up instantly.

"Takahashi-san, please take this quickly." Onuma gave Kuki-chan the line with the minnow lure, wrapping the cord around her wrist. "Whatever happens, don't let go."  
"What's happening?" she gasped, and Onuma shook his head.  
"I'm not sure. Put down the paddle, Morinozuka, I'll take care of it. You take care of the kid." 

Onuma grasped the paddle in the front of the canoe, and began cleaving the water in strong, even strokes, as Mori dropped his own paddle to the bottom, slipping off the bench to wrap himself around Arai, who was now curled in on himself and sobbing breathlessly.  
"I have you," he said into the young man's ear. "Don't listen to it, I have you, and you won't get lost."

"Lost and blind. Not even a memory," said the voice. "Your only place is here with us. Everything else is gone."  
"That's a lie," Mori hissed, tucking Arai's head in against his chest, covering his ear so he didn't have to listen. "You have a place, you have a home. I know you, and your friends know you, and we won't let you disappear."

"We've been waiting, watching for so very long. You were forgotten by all the living, but we waited."

He didn't know what was worse; being helpless to stop this voice taunting them, or having no idea at all where it was coming from. Was the speaker on the bank? Was it in the water with them, just out of sight in the fog? 

But then even more worrisome, was the question of why Arai could apparently hear the words, when Onuma and Kuki-chan couldn't.

Was the voice reaching him because he was weak, feverish, and dreaming? Or was Arai--and this possibility terrified Mori, absolutely--able to hear it because he was coming closer to the world of ghosts and spirits; adrift in that shadowy realm between the living and the dead?

" _He will fade_ ," that stranger had warned last night, and Mori's entire being rebelled against the very suggestion. He could not, while there was a shred of life in his body, permit Arai to fade from this world. But what could he do besides hang on, with the grim determination of a man dangling from the top of a high cliff by his fingertips?

"Bring the child, and go free," offered the voice from the fog, and Arai shuddered in Mori's arms, letting out a sound that tore straight into Mori's chest to freeze his heart. Such a bargain was impossible, obscene, and as far as Mori was concerned, it was the last straw.

"Be silent!" he demanded, voice cracking with desperate fury. "I will _never_ give him to you!" From the corner of his eye, he saw Kuki-chan flinch, and for just an instant pictured himself from her perspective, screaming like a madman at the silent fog.

And that was when he realized: all that voice could do, was talk. If it had any other power, it wouldn't be tormenting him with words. If it could have what it wanted by any other means, it surely would have used them.

"You have no hope," the voice assured them, but this time Mori ignored it, in favor of holding Arai up, trying to rouse him.

"Wake up," he murmured, "I want you to see something."  
Arai's eyes were squinted to a tight line, his fists knuckled white against his chest, breath coming in hoarse shallow pants. Mori patted his cheek and shook his shoulder, first gently, then more insistently.  
"Come on, open your eyes, please."

"All you've known has passed away," said the fog.

"It's just a bad dream," Mori insisted, feeling Arai's heart thrumming much too fast, under his hand. "All you have to do is wake up. Listen to me, okay?"

"Morinozuka-sama...." It was Kuki-chan, pressing the open canteen into his hand, and Mori hated to do it, but he hated the thought of Arai being literally frightened to death, even more. He dashed the open canteen straight into Arai's face, splashing water everywhere, and Arai came to with a shriek, jolting violently awake and sputtering, catching Mori's leg with a sharp knee, and knocking a flailing fist against the side of his head.

"Look at me." Mori shoved the canteen back to Kuki-chan, and caught Arai's dripping chin, staring into his huge, terrified eyes, as a protracted scream sounded all around them; harsh and piercing as a hawk's cry.  
"I don't wanna go, please, I don't wanna get lost, it's bad out there, it's gonna take me, please don't--."

"Stop, be still," Mori said, holding tight to Arai as he struggled, rocking the canoe precariously. "Nothing's going to take you." He wiped the wetness from Arai's forehead and eyes, determinedly holding his gaze. "We're going to the village, and you are coming with us, no matter what. Understand?"

"Hang in there," Onuma called from the front. "I think we're in the bend, now. Shouldn't be much longer."  
Arai's frantic wriggling stopped, but his breath was still rasping in and out, and his wide-eyed stare was uncomprehending. "What--ah--but." 

"Look--." Mori tilted him up, pointing off to the fog. "There's nothing to see out there."  
"But I--you were yelling at it. It was tal--talking to us.."  
"It's just a voice. It can't reach us. Do you hear anything now?"

Arai blinked, and slowly looked around for himself. "N--not right now." Then his gaze caught the light of the kinmedai, gliding and darting through the water all around the canoe. "What are those?"  
"They're fish that helped the village a long time ago," Mori answered. "Hito-sama told Kuki-chan about them."

For a moment, Arai registered the girl sitting tensed on her knees, watching them with mute concern, and then he focused again on the bright fish, lighting their way through the fog. "They're--." He squinted and blinked a few times. "They're supposed to be....shiny like that?"

"I guess so," said Mori.  
"Where'd they come from?" Momentarily distracted from his fright by curiosity, Arai seemed to be calming down, and Mori was only too happy to encourage this.  
"That's a good question. Where I came from, there were salt water fish, that looked exactly like these. But there's no ocean anywhere near here."

"Were those ones shiny too?"  
"Not any more than most fish."  
"Oh." Having exhausted his meager strength, he subsided against Mori again with a deep weary sigh, verging on a yawn.  
"Try to stay awake, okay?" Though he was aware it may only be coincidence, Mori hoped that the hidden voice might not trouble them, if Arai was awake. And whether this were true or not, it was harder to soothe his terror with reason, if he was asleep.

Arai turned to look at him. "You heard that....voice."  
Mori nodded, and Arai looked at Kuki-chan then. "You heard it?"  
For a moment, the girl glanced back and forth between them with an anxious frown. Finally, looking a bit regretful, she shook her head. "I only heard Morinozuka-sama. I'm sorry."

"What does that mean?" Arai asked Mori, who could only shrug.  
"I really don't know."  
"It was talking to me. But I was--it was a bad dream, right?"  
"What did it say?" asked Kuki-chan, who'd clearly been dying to ask, but swiftly shrank back at the looks both Arai and Mori gave her. "I beg your pardon. It's none of my business."

"It said Takashi should take me out there...." Arai spared a fearful glance out toward the foggy nothingness. "It said we were lost. That everyone forgot about me. Like, we should just give up. That's what you heard, right?" It was plain to Mori that Arai was both hoping for, and fearing confirmation, and he sighed heavily.

"That's what I heard," he agreed "But it doesn't mean anything."  
"What did it want?" Arai pressed.

"To confuse us. To make us stop," suggested Mori, after weighing several possible answers. He suspected, though he was extremely unwilling to admit out loud, that what that voice had mostly wanted, was Arai. For what exactly, he wasn't sure and didn't care to imagine. But it stood to reason that if there were things in the forest last night which were interested in Mori, to the extent that he'd needed a kekkai and a powerful escort to avoid them, how much more interested would those things be, in Arai?

And as much as he might insist to Arai, that what the voice had said didn't matter, there was no doubt in his mind, that the voice had known him. It knew he'd been lost before, it knew he was vulnerable now. It knew what he had lost in the past, and most unsettling of all, it had been waiting for him.

Arai didn't look entirely satisfied at the answer, eying Mori with doubt, and for the first time Mori realized he had been more frightened in the last two days than at any time since he was twelve years old. Even when he was sitting in that prison cell after hearing his death sentence, or hiding in the darkest alleys, after his escape; none of those experiences had inspired the kind of gut-jarring terror he had lately felt on Arai's behalf.

But even if that strange man hadn't practically commanded Mori to protect Arai, he would have done it anyway. Regardless of what it cost him in peace of mind, or his personal safety, or other people's opinion of his sanity. Rather than diminish his devotion, every trial he'd withstood since leaving Onuma's yesterday, had only cemented it deeper. He would undertake the whole trip again, ten times over--a thousand times--with all its perils, just so long as he could know that Arai was safe at the end of it.

He could already see that he would never again be the same aloof, generally fearless person he'd been before knowing Arai. But as far as Mori was concerned, it was worth the loss of his old self. What he had gained, in this person he would be forever compelled to watch and worry over, was greater than anything he would have aspired to before.

 

**

To be honest, he was afraid to listen too closely to their surroundings anymore, lest he hear something he didn't want to. But without something to focus on, Mori was apt to be lulled into a stupor by the blank, unchanging gray all around them. He caught himself more than once, staring off into nothing, his sight glazing over, and Arai and Kuki-chan were doing the same.

A person could only stay tensed, expecting the worst for so long, before they simply checked out of themselves. Doubtless all three of them had been living in a prolonged state of dread, relieved only by mindless still interludes like this. They were past the point of making small talk, as people generally did when confronted with lengthy uncomfortable silences. They were too tired for it, and there was no topic of conversation--at least not any that Mori could think of--which would be safe, or particularly comforting in these circumstances.

Even Onuma, who could usually be counted on to ease the tension of a trying situation, chose to remain quiet. He tracked the kinmedai, he kept a constant sharp eye on their surroundings, and he paddled them ever forward with an apparently inexhaustible steady rhythm. But aside from glancing back at them occasionally, catching Mori's eye to make sure all was relatively well, he paid very little mind to his fellow passengers.

**

When the huge reverberating boom sounded directly overhead, all of them jumped. Arai gasped and pressed back into Mori, who instantly clutched him closer. The noise startled a squeak out of Kuki-chan, and she turned straightaway to Arai. "I heard that!"

"Thunder," Onuma announced, just as a second rolling peal went tumbling across the whole width of the sky. They all looked up at the dark nothingness overhead, and then Arai flinched again.  
"--Ah!" He wiped his cheek where the raindrop had struck, and because he'd had so much practice lately, Mori's imagination straightaway leapt to the next worst-case scenario. Frantically bailing the canoe out in a rushing torrent, sinking ever lower in the river, until they were finally forced to swim for it. He had a bowl, and his box of food they could use for bailing. It was doubtless too much to ask, that Arai or Kuki-chan could actually swim.

"Who wants to grab an oar?" Onuma broke in on Mori's catastrophe planning with an unaccountably cheerful look over his shoulder, and at Mori's blank stare, added, "You hear that?"

He felt four raindrops strike him as he cocked his head, listening to the sound he'd first taken for a long echo of thunder. But no, it was the noise of rushing water, rapidly growing louder. Seeing Kuki-chan tugging at the cord wrapped around her wrist--the other end still dangling with the lure in the water--Mori reached around Arai and grabbed the oar he'd dropped previously.

"No, hang onto that," he told Kuki-chan. "We need the fish to stay with us."  
"Aim for the right side, or we'll miss the fork," Onuma instructed, having to raise his voice over the roar of the water. "Sounds like the current's going hard, so try and keep the brakes on."

"I'm in your way," Arai frowned, trying to wriggle himself out from the circle of Mori's arms, but already Mori could feel the canoe picking up speed, and there was no time to get himself back up in the seat.  
"You're fine, just lean back." He pulled Arai back against his chest and reached around him to dig hard at the water on the left side, as Onuma was doing, trying to turn the canoe to the right.

The thunder boomed again, hard drops of rain pelting them fitfully, and any second, the storm was going to open a deluge on their heads. A breath of damp forest air touched his face, startling after the sterile stillness of the fog.

"There it is! Turn right!" Onuma shouted, just as the world abruptly opened wide, so much breathtaking space, reed-lined banks, the river roaring to life all around. Mori took it all in, in a blink, as he drove the oar down, holding it with all his might against the astonishing sudden strength of the water, desperately willing the canoe to turn.

Onuma carved the water hard on the right side, as the gap in the bank approached, and Mori did the same on the left. When the current caught the canoe broadside, he felt them tipping, but they were so close to making it, just a few more strokes--

There came a shuddering jolt, as the front of the canoe struck the edge of the gap. "Keep paddling!" shouted Onuma, shoving them off a huge boulder on the left, just inside the river fork. They teetered and tilted, and later on, Mori would discover a fist-sized bruise, where Arai had clenched down on his leg, but the canoe hit the water with a splash, leveling out, and the flooding current carried them on down the fork.

By some miracle, the kinmedai stayed with them through the turbulence, lighting up the deep rushing stream, lined with clumps of cattails and the brooding silhouettes of tall cedars. They were all soaked from the pouring rain now and breathless, but even as Mori continued rowing fiercely--so close to sanctuary he could almost taste it--he took in the sights around them with hungry, relieved eyes.

"Did we make it? Are we there?" Arai gasped.  
"Almost there." No sooner had he gotten the words out, than he felt Arai go limp against him, all his tension of the past few minutes abruptly melting.

"You got that rope?" Onuma called back to Mori. "We'll have to tie off at the temple dock."  
"I can get it," offered Kuki-chan, seeing Mori's hands full with the oar, and Arai apparently fallen unconscious against him.

"More to the left, it's coming up soon," said Onuma, trading his oar for the the mooring rope, and balancing one knee on the front seat. Mori steered them over, feeling the current weakening again, as the stream widened out to a spacious, tree-lined pond.

"Hallo there," Onuma called out. "We apologize for intruding, but we've come to ask your aid."  
The dock of the temple floated slowly into view, back-lit by dozens of hanging lanterns. On the dock stood a shadowed figure, peering out from under an umbrella into the pouring darkness, at their approach.  
"I'm so sorry," a voice called back, sounding young and uncertain. "But I'm not supposed to let visitors come in this way."

"Yes, I know the rules," said Onuma, attempting to shield his glasses from the rain with one hand. "And again, my apologies, but I'm afraid this is a bit of an emergency."  
"Emergency?" the young man--hardly more than a boy--asked. "Who--." The question broke off on a gasp, as the speaker leapt backwards, having apparently caught his first good look at them. "What are you? What is that light?"

"Don't worry, we're not demons," Onuma reassured the boy, grinning. "Listen, go get one of the priests, alright? Tell them Onuma needs a hand, here."  
They were close enough now, that the light of the kinmedai reached the frightened stare of the shrine boy. He took in the canoe, the drenched and disheveled party of four, and finally the school of brightly glowing fish that surrounded them. He hesitated for one last, apprehensive look at Onuma, and then scampered off, sandals splashing up puddles down the wooden dock, all the way back to the trees.

"Well," chuckled Onuma, leaping nimbly onto the dock to tie off, "Welcome to Minazuki shrine, I guess."


	43. Chapter 43

The cicadas sang in the warm summer evening, as Mori made his way down the wooden veranda. Over the treetops, the sun's last rays caught the great gate of the temple, still as high and eternally imposing as he remembered.

The grounds were empty; courtyards hushed in the rosy sunset light. Except for a faint stirring of the warm air, and the sounds of evening insects, Mori would have thought the place was caught in stillness, like a picture under glass.

But he could feel the breeze on his face, fragrant with cedar and a distant hint of incense somewhere, and he could hear his sandals, slapping softly against the wood beneath his soles.

He had an idea of his destination, though he felt no particular hurry to get there. He merely let his feet carry him, down the walkway, into the wide open doors, where wood became stone under his sandals, and the breeze was tempered by cool shadows; the scent of ink and old paper, and the incense that wove inextricably into his earliest memories.

He understood that he wasn't truly here; he had agreed a long time ago, that he would never return to this place. His life was somewhere far away now, and even if he could come back here, he knew he could not abandon the life he had made; he wasn't even tempted to.

Even so, it was a comfort to be here, in a way. The peaceful familiarity was bound up in the melancholy of old longing, like catching the distant strains of a half-forgotten song. But this was still the safest place he had ever been, a refuge he had trusted above all others, and he was grateful he could at least visit his first home, just for a short while.

The scent of incense grew stronger, as he approached the door he'd been heading for all along. Before sliding the door open, he paused, palm flat on the smooth-rubbed wood, knowing that this time, something was different.

He closed his eyes and breathed in the familiar scents around him, listening to the rising chorus of the cicadas out in that soft-lit summer evening, thinking that if this was the last time he could ever come here, he wanted to print all these details on his memory. 

And then carefully, he slid the door aside, slipped his feet from his sandals, and entered.

He'd been expecting someone in the room this time, and was not disappointed. But after making his customary bow to the altar shelf, where three sticks of incense burned for an offering, he saw that the person kneeling at the low table was not who he would've expected.

"Yamato-sama?" It was the priest he'd met as a ghost, more than a year ago, with Onuma and the fox. The man who'd shown up with the kinmedai in the river, and had given Onuma that silver minnow lure.

Mori bowed respectfully, of course, but had to take another look around the room, to make sure this was the right one. Yamato didn't belong to this temple, or Mori's distant past, and he wasn't sure why the two were overlapping, now.

"Good evening to you, young fellow," said Yamato, looking just as kind and real as he had, out by the river near Onuma's home on that prickly-warm summer evening. "My goodness, it's pleasure to meet you again. Please, come and join me."

Mori approached the table, where the scrolls and old books were stacked just as he remembered from his other dreams, noticing that this time there was tea set out as well; two steaming cups and a small iron pot with a dragonfly carved on the lid. He didn't recognize the cups--though their rough blue glaze was quite striking--or the pot, but in all other respects he was certain this was still the head priest Jyuuzou-sama's study. So many details of this place should have faded from his memory, over the past several years. Surely this was too vivid for a dream?

He knelt on the cushion across from Yamato, and the old priest smiled reassuringly at him. "It was you, who provided us this place to meet. Because the memories in your heart are more faithful than you might realize."

"Ah," Mori nodded, and then took a moment to consider. "So. This is a meeting? I mean, you're not just part of my dream?"  
"You've been seeking answers to important questions," the priest answered. "You've come to the place where you found guidance in the past. Of course the ones who live here now cannot guide you." His smile broadened, and he tilted his head in a gently self-deprecating gesture. "I'm afraid there is only this humble old ghost to help you out, now. Ah, but how rude of me. Please, enjoy some tea, before it gets cold."

Mori ducked his chin automatically, murmuring his thanks, before taking up the cup. As was proper, he took time to appreciate the artless effect of the craftsmanship, and the slight imperfections in the ocean-blue glaze, while behind his eyes, his mind was racing.

What could he ask this man? Where should he start? He sensed this was a rare, probably unique opportunity, so how could he make the most of it?

He sipped the steaming tea, bitter and fragrant on his tongue, picturing a puzzle scattered into thousands of small pieces; all the hints and omissions and signs from other dreams. What was the key to it all? What were the questions that would help him put it all together?

"This is exceptional tea," he told the priest, and truly it was, finer than anything he'd tasted in years. "Where was it grown?"  
"How interesting you should ask," the old man said, sounding genuinely pleased, though the question was more a ritual courtesy than anything. "I don't imagine you'll find anything like it where you live, anymore. But quite a long time ago, back when I was young, this tea was the pride of the region. It was cultivated on an estate far up the river, by an excellent gentleman."

Halfway through another sip, Mori halted and swallowed carefully. "An estate upriver. About a day's travel?"  
"If one followed the river," the priest nodded. "Though most people took the road."  
"But you used to go through the forest," Mori guessed, with a quiet rush of excitement, the feeling of one small puzzle piece slipping into place.   
"Indeed, I did."

"What happened to that place?" Mori blurted, unable to contain himself. "I was there, and it was terrible. People were dying. And there was something...." He shook his head, at a loss for words to describe a horrible ghost, when speaking to a good one.

Yamato's smile faded, as he lifted his teacup, staring into its depths. "Back in my day, that estate's master was someone I regarded very highly. I did what I could for them, but I am sad to say, it was not enough. The place fell into the hands of a dangerous, grasping individual. Someone who should never been allowed to set foot in that family's house. But he could not get all he wanted, and in his death, he cursed their land."

Mori ransacked the puzzle pieces in his memory, knowing there were more details. "There was a father, and a daughter," remembering what Kuki-chan had told them. "What became of them?"

The priest sipped his tea, his expression going distant, and so sad that Mori almost regretted the question. He was about to apologize and take it back, but then Yamato--after some serious deliberation--decided to explain.

"I hope you can forgive me, for not being more forthcoming. Circumstances during my life made it necessary that I take a vow, never to speak of that family. It was a matter of their protection. A man in my position cannot lie, you understand. So instead I vowed to keep silent, and I fear that promise binds me still."

"So no one knows what happened?" Mori shoulders slumped as he saw yet another lead hitting a dead-end. "It's all been--forgotten."  
Yamato set his cup down and placed his hands, side by side, in his lap. "I wouldn't say the story has entirely disappeared. There are things which can be hidden for a very long time. But if one knew where to look....they might be found."

Hidden, Mori thought. Protected. He knew a place that was protected. Where things had been hidden for a long time, indeed. A canister of rice. A pear blossom comb. A key and a scroll.

With a soft, quiet click, an unexpected piece of the picture slipped into place and Mori felt his jaw drop loose. A father and a daughter. The river estate falling to calamity, a hundred years ago. The ghost of a modest noble lady in old-fashioned robes, hiding her face behind her fan.

"I met her," he whispered, stunned. He looked to Yamato, but the priest only gazed steadily back, giving nothing away. If Mori wanted confirmation on this subject, he would have to seek it himself. But now he had a strong hunch about where he should begin looking. All the signs were pointing to that woman's ghost, whom he'd encountered on those early nights on the cottage property, when he'd been injured and starving, and genuinely concerned for his survival. He'd barely scraped together the wherewithal to follow her and carry out her requests, but her reward had done far more than save his life.

Though it was perplexing, to say the least. How would that lady have come all the way from the estate, to the cottage he lived at now? Suspecting this was something Yamato couldn't answer, Mori considered what else the priest might be able to enlighten him about.

"When you traveled in the forest, did you ever come across someone who wasn't--exactly human?"

A hint of the old man's smile returned, at this. "The forest is a curious place, isn't it? One never knows who they might meet. I must admit, during my life I was skeptical of the old myths and folktales. But the things I've seen since, have changed my views a bit."

"I met a person, the other night. He--well, I'd seen him before. But I think I was dead for a second, then. But he had this light--," Mori passed his hand in the air around himself to illustrate. "And his clothes were perfect. But he wasn't a ghost...." He trailed off, frowning at his inability to describe the stranger who'd led him out of that haunted forest night. "I don't know what he was, except that he was....very powerful."

Yamato nodded along, thoughtfully. "I think I know the sort you mean. Never knew him to speak to, but an old acquaintance of mine spoke of knowing one like that."  
"He told me he saw you, or he knew about you walking through the forest. You were only one of three people, who didn't get lost," Mori told him.

"Well, I reckon he would know," Yamato said. "Being the guardians of the forest, I imagine his sort know everything that goes on."  
"Guardians?" This was entirely new to Mori. "There's more like him?"

"Oh they're rare, from what I hear. They live a blessed long time, compared to you and I. And according to the stories, they don't always keep the same shape. In theory, a person could meet them, and not even know it."

"You mean...." Mori snatched around in his memory of folklore at random. "Like Tanuki?"  
"Sure, or Bakeneko," the priest grinned, adding with a wink, "Kitsune."

For a moment Mori tried to imagine the fox he had cared for, transforming into that stern, proud stranger. But it was impossible. He couldn't fit the two together at all. "Are those stories really true? Do you believe them?"

Yamato's smile stayed put, but his eyes were serious on Mori. "Will my opinion on the matter help your troubles?"

After thinking it over, Mori sighed. "I guess not." Between the questions Yamato couldn't answer because of his vow, and the things the man couldn't possibly know about, since they'd happened after he died, Mori wasn't sure what he ought to be asking, that might help him.

"My trouble," he confessed, "is that there's something I'm supposed to do. But I don't know what it is. And there's someone I want--very much--to help, but I don't know how. And everyone I ask, they tell me nobody remembers, or the story got lost, or they just talk in riddles." He sighed out his frustration, cradling the teacup in his palms, staring into the liquid like some answer might surface there; an image, any idea at all.

"I don't want to fail. I don't want the person I'm helping to hurt anymore. But what am I supposed to do about it?"

"For what it's worth to you, I do remember that feeling." Yamato's age-weathered face was creased with sympathy, and his eyes bore a look that was both kindly and regretful. And Mori believed that he did understand, that he had probably spent the last years of his life struggling with a desire to help, which he could not fulfill. A yearning which must have carried over beyond his natural life, tying him to the world for a long and very lonely time afterward.

"Sometimes, the things we desire to do are beyond our ability. Sometimes the answers we need are right in front of us all along, but we don't see them. I understand now, that I was blinded by skepticism. I could not help, because I could not accept the truth. I insisted on rational answers, when what I ought to have done, was pay attention and believe. But by the time I learned better, it was too late."

Mori listened closely to the old priest's words, turning them over, seeing much of himself in Yamato's regrets. He hadn't forgotten Onuma's advice, about being mindful of his dreams, learning all he could, so he could use it when the time came. And recent events had taught him well, about the importance of gleaning every possible hint.

"What would you do, if you were me?" he asked Yamato. "Now that you've learned better?"  
"Ah--." Yamato leaned back a bit, absorbed by the question. He sipped from his teacup, his gaze gone distant over the rim, while Mori waited patiently.

"You know, one thing I never took into account, was the power of a wish. And now," he smiled faintly, "I wish I had. All my life, I saw people pray and desire and strive for things. But I never noticed how a person's existence could be transformed--for better, or worse--if they only wished strongly enough. Did you know that if you dedicate yourself, absolutely, to one desire, you will be changed by it? Now mind you, this doesn't mean you'll necessarily get what you hoped you would. But you will be changed."

"There's a price," Mori murmured, having learned that lesson a long time ago.  
"Indeed there is," Yamato nodded. "And it takes a strong person, devoted to an immense desire, to pay that price without regrets afterward. Sometimes that price is the person you once were, and sometimes--."

"Wait!" Mori broke in, feeling all the puzzle pieces in his mind suddenly shiver. "Sorry--I--."

_The person you once were_. Could that be it? Could Arai have paid for something--some wish, some extraordinary desire--with the person he used to be, before he was found alone and nameless in the forest? But what in the world could he have wanted so much, that it would leave him so helpless, and all alone in the world?

Unless that was what he had wanted. To give himself up, to become someone else?

"Sorry," he repeated, as the questions spun in his head, refusing to settle. He looked up at Yamato, regarding him with patient interest. "I thought--this person I want to help, he lost who he is. His name, his memory. They're gone, and I was just thinking." Mori shook his head. "But it doesn't make sense. I don't know."

"A name would be a high price to pay," Yamato pointed out. "Some people harbor desires which gradually erode who they are, until they no longer recognize themselves. But that generally happens over a lifetime. It would take an unusual circumstance, and a highly unusual person, to surrender their name in the sense you're talking of. Most people wouldn't be capable of it at all."

"How would someone lose their name, like that?" asked Mori, thinking of how the man in the white and crimson robes had described it, with the river, and the maps, and all.

"Well. You understand I can only speculate," said Yamato. "But it seems to me, that person would have to find something powerful enough to erase their name. And then they would have to survive the experience. But I have to say, I'm hard pressed to imagine any person still existing afterward."

Mori sensed there was something important, in the difference between what Yamato was telling him, and the way the man was looking at him. His words said that Arai's survival had been impossible. But the expectancy in his eyes, a quiet, keen watchfulness, led Mori to feel that it had been possible. That there was perhaps some important exception, some mitigating factor not yet considered.

"Could a person like that....guardian you mentioned, survive it?" he asked. "Someone with a lot of power, who lived longer than us?"

"It's difficult to say," Yamato shrugged. "I can't claim to understand those individuals, or their capabilities. Though I'm inclined to think it would be the same as with us. If they lose what they are, then what are they? What is left, that can walk away from the encounter?"

_He is bound to the world by promises_ , the strange proud man had said. After telling Mori about bonds, providing strength where it may be lacking. Surely that had to explain Arai's survival; how he had happened upon a dark, unspeakable power (or it had happened to him), had the essence of his very identity stripped away (or gave it up, in order to obtain something he desired above all else), and yet managed to go on living afterward.

Though not for long, according to the stranger. And hadn't Mizuko-chan confirmed this, when she'd given Arai that stone, and then brought its broken pieces back to Mori?

"How would you make a promise strong enough, that it could keep someone in this world?" he asked Yamato, who smiled wryly.  
"If anyone knew that for sure, don't you think it would be common knowledge by now?"  
"I think that's what happened, with my friend. That's why he's still here. But if that can't last, what else can I do for him?" 

It wasn't just that he couldn't imagine how he would go on living, if he lost Arai. It was the cruelty of the young man's plight, which hurt Mori the worst at that moment. To think how Arai had barely survived that terrifying darkness; cast out into the world with an empty blank space where any sense of himself or his history ought to be. Brought to the village as a stranger, a nameless foundling, and struggling for the recognition and simple acceptance that people with names and memories took completely for granted. Surmounting one misfortune after another, and never seeing a genuine triumph, before the last tethers keeping him here finally raveled away to nothing. 

Such an outcome was beyond tragic. Worse than unjust. If this was what the world dealt out to someone who had never been anything but generous, pure-hearted and true in spite of every hardship, then Mori did not care to live in such a world. If Arai disappeared, there wouldn't be any reason for Mori to go on. He would never believe in anything again.

"I would be happy, if I could tell you what to do," said Yamato. "If I could spare you my own mistakes, it would be a comfort to me." He turned, looking off toward the screened windows, suffused with the deep reddish light of sunset.

"But I can't imagine you are entirely powerless. There is the fact that we are able to speak together. And I see you have been learning from some rather extraordinary people. Not to mention the determination you bring to your goal." As he spoke, his gaze traveled the walls and beams of this simple, peaceful room, coming to rest at last on the table between them. The cups, the scrolls, the dragonfly teapot. This last he regarded with a small, fond smile, leading Mori to think it had once been a favorite possession of this ghost.

Then he raised that smile to Mori, who somehow knew that the end of their meeting was at hand. The incense at the altar was almost all burned away, and outside, the summer twilight would be fading into indigo night; the crickets' songs taking up where the cicadas had left off.

"I have to thank you," he told Yamato, while he still had the chance. "The lure you gave my neighbor, I believe it saved us. We ran into a fog, out on the river. I don't think we would've made it out, if it weren't for your kinmedai."

Yamato nodded, as though somehow he had expected something like this. "I'm glad to know I made a good choice, in passing it on."  
"Would you like us to leave it with the shrine, now?"

"If it isn't a burden, I think I'd rather your neighbor hang on to it. Who knows but he'll have need of it again someday. And eventually, he may find someone he wants to pass it on to. He seemed like a keen fellow, I trust he'd give it to the right person."

"Thank you," Mori nodded. "I'll be sure and tell him. Is there anything else you'd like us to do?"  
"Would you mind walking outside with me?" Once more, Yamato's smile was kind and self-deprecating. "This is quite an impressive place, but I'm not sure I know the way out."

Mori nodded again, readily. He wouldn't mind another chance to see the verandas and the great central courtyard in the sunset, one last time.

Although somehow, once they'd made it down the stone hallway and out the wide main doors, they didn't end up in the courtyard at all.  
"That's odd," Mori noted, looking across the clearing at his own cottage. A glance behind him showed the head of the village trail, winding off through the trees.

"It seems you're ready to be back home," Yamato said, taking in the cottage, and the vegetable plot, and then turning to view the pear orchard. "I wish my old friend could see this. He would be very pleased, to see the care you've taken with the place."  
It didn't surprise Mori at all, that the last owner of the cottage property had known Yamato. It seemed like every time he turned around lately, he was discovering another unexpected connection somewhere.

"I think I met him, a couple days ago," he offered. "It might've been just a dream. But he told me someone was supposed to claim this place soon."

Yamato nodded agreeably, still taking in the view. "This is just a thought. But you know, you may find helping this friend of yours is not so difficult as you expect."  
"How so?"  
"Consider what a person in that situation might need the most. If they hadn't any home, or family. If they didn't remember anyone caring for them. If they hadn't anything to call their own."

It sounded remarkably similar to the advice the butcher's wife had given him, so many months ago. Only now, Mori knew the stakes were so much higher than he had ever suspected back then.  
"I'll give him this place. I'll give him everything I have," he answered, as a familiar suffocating helplessness rose up in him. "But if that isn't enough....I don't know what else to do."

"Pay attention," said Yamato. "And don't be daunted by what seems impossible to you. Remember, that the answer you seek could always be waiting right nearby." With those words he looked up at Mori, taking his measure with wise, far-seeing eyes, before offering a bow of farewell.

"Thank you. I am grateful for your guidance." Mori made a point of bowing lower than the priest, because even though he was not at all confident, he was thankful, immensely so, to have any help at all.

**

The last he remembered of the dream, before waking up, was watching Yamato ambling off toward the pear orchard, soaked in the clear warm light of the sunset. As he reached the first leafy rows, he turned back to wave goodbye to Mori, who raised his hand in acknowledgment. He saw a glint of light behind Yamato then, like sunlight winking off of metal somewhere amongst the trees. But before he could make out the source of the reflection, Yamato was turning away, and Onuma was prodding Mori awake.


	44. Chapter 44

As Onuma had said, the village was devastated over the tragedy at the estate. The doctor and the constable were both running themselves ragged, looking after the survivors, and the entire community--since most everyone was either family or friend to someone who'd died there--were in shocked mourning.

Thanks to their extraordinary arrival, Arai, Mori, Onuma, and Kuki-chan were offered immediate aid by the shrine's residents. The small village clinic was past capacity, with the dozen or so survivors from the estate, but with an urgent word from the head priest, the doctor Kamio-sensei was quickly summoned to see to Arai.

"He's not the worst case I've seen so far, but I don't imagine he would've made it much longer." The man looked grim and drawn, nearly as worn out as his patients. "If it was something infectious running around that place, I've never seen it before. Just from the looks of him, I'd call it severe exhaustion, and malnutrition. There comes a point where the body just shuts down from stress. Any number of complications can set in from there."

On the rare occasions they could wake him up, they were able to establish that Arai could keep food and drink down, and with a regular application of cold compresses through the night, his fever was finally subsiding. But unless someone worked persistently to wake him, his sleep was deep and utterly still, regardless of the noise or activity going on around him. And when he was awake (if one could even call it that, Mori thought) it seemed like Arai was hardly there at all. His eyes would open, he could be persuaded to answer simple questions. But every time, he seemed more blank, spiritless, as though the young man Mori knew was pulling away to some diminishing distance.

On the first night, it took Onuma crouching down and whispering a threat into Mori's ear at three in the morning ( _"If you don't lie down and get some rest, I am not above putting you out cold, myself."_ ), before Mori consented to leave off his worried vigil and crawl into the bed laid out next to Arai's. He slept long and deeply then, dreaming of Yamato, until the old priest departed, and Onuma poked him awake for a late breakfast. But although Mori was more or less refreshed once he got up, Arai was not so much improved.

Kamio-sensei had prescribed doses of an herbal tonic, plenty of rest and as much food as Arai would take. But beyond that, he'd said, the recovery would take time. Arai was in weaker health now, than when he'd first been carried out of the woods, and he'd been weeks recovering from that. The doctor recommended they stay put at the shrine for a few days, to make sure Arai's condition wouldn't worsen. After that point, he told Mori to be prepared for a long convalescence.

If there was any bright spot in the whole terrible situation, it was that Mori at least didn't have to bargain with Arai-san over responsibility for the young man. When the first refugees had come bearing news of a possible epidemic at the estate, the grocer had volunteered for a two-day trip west to the next town, with the constable's deputy, to bring an additional physician to help Kamio-sensei. 

By the time he returned, Mori hoped to be back at the cottage already, having left word of his intentions, at the grocery. Of course Arai-san would be welcome at the cottage, if he wished to visit the young man. But as far as Mori was concerned, Arai's obligations to everyone in the village were discharged, a point he planned to make in explicit detail, to anyone who questioned him.

Though as it turned out, he probably wouldn't have to worry. He and Arai had gained a staunch champion in Kuki-chan, being one of the few employees of Gregor's household who had not suffered the dire effects of that evil atmosphere. After seeing Arai and Mori settled in at the shrine, Onuma had escorted her home, to the immense gratitude of all her family. And after explaining her version of events (in which the noble valor of all three men featured prominently, according to Onuma), the girl's entire family--parents, siblings, and grandfather, declared themselves in debt to Kuki-chan's friend and rescuers.

Hito-sama himself came to the shrine to visit Mori, sitting for nearly an hour, watching Arai with the same look of stunned sadness that everyone in the village wore. He'd brought along a potted zinnia from his own garden, as a gift to Arai, and while Mori assured Hito that Arai would be deeply touched, caution compelled him to place the flower in the furthest window across the room from Arai's bed, hoping the man would be too distracted to think anything of it.

Remembering his promise to Ikasu's ghost, Mori offered Hito condolences for his old friend's passing. Knowing from experience that messages left by the dead were seldom taken well by the living, he omitted any mention of the shogi game. And having already heard the news from his granddaughter, Hito didn't take it amiss. He only wanted to pass on his thanks to Arai, for risking his own health to make sure Ikasu didn't suffer all alone. And then of course Hito wondered--as everyone in the village did--what had become of that terrible tenant.

Mori had been fortunate so far, that no one had thought to question him on the matter. He and Onuma had privately conferred, and decided that for the sake of avoiding endless trouble, neither of them had ever seen Gregor, officially. They had come to the estate from the back, and seen the man's hounds, but even Kuki-chan didn't know that Gregor himself had come out after she escaped. 

As for what had truly happened to the man, it was too bizarre to explain. Better all around, to let everyone think he had simply disappeared on his own. No doubt the constable would search long and hard, but unless Mori was very much mistaken, they would never find him. That frightful apparition--which had scorched a deep permanent streak of a scar on Mori's left arm, in passing--wouldn't have left anything to find. Mori's defense against the apparition had done away with the rest.

In the few moments when they were alone, in the small borrowed room where Arai lay so still and quiet, Mori would close his eyes and see the last moments of that confrontation. He wondered if the explosion of staggering power he'd forced out--with no time to worry if it would even work--had put Gregor out of his suffering. He wondered if the person whose spirit had eventually become that deadly violent mass of shadows, had once been someone better or worse than Gregor. After listening to Yamato, Mori was inclined to think worse, though he had a hard time imagining that.

In some respects, he felt badly that he couldn't reassure all those fearful, grieving people outside, that the person responsible for their grief would cause no more trouble to anyone. But even if he could make them all believe it, he couldn't afford that kind of notoriety. It was bad enough that Hito and the Takahashi family practically revered him and Onuma (though Onuma was better used to it, since he'd been rescuing lost villagers for years). He would have been more than content for Onuma to take all the credit, and let everyone forget about Mori himself. But Kuki-chan's family had already paid the costs for Arai's medical care, and had made donations to the temple, to cover Mori and Arai's room and board. And most importantly, thanks to Kuki-chan, Arai was appreciated and respected by his fellow villagers better than when he had lived among them.

It was too bad, Mori thought bitterly, that he wasn't able to enjoy his newfound popularity.

**

After Mori had awakened on the second day, in between visits from Hito, Kamio-sensei, and a few monks looking in to check on them, Mori related all that he had seen and felt on the estate grounds proper, to Onuma. He had to back up and tell the story of the cursed household he'd encountered as a boy, by way of context, and Onuma agreed that the situation seemed very similar.

He would have gone on to discuss what he'd learned of the estate's history, from Yamato, but there was another topic he felt it was important to settle first. After making sure the door was closed, and no one would be looking in on them anytime soon, Mori drew out the bound sketchbook he had salvaged from Arai's nightstand, back in the hothouse.

"Last fall, I met a ghost, between here and where I live. You know that path that runs west off the main trail, and ends up in that valley with the lake?"

Onuma agreed that he did. "Who was the ghost?"  
"She was a foreigner. A visitor at some point, I guess." Mori described the woman's hair, and the blue dress cinched tight around the bodice, and her gloves and parasol. Onuma listened and nodded, and then when Mori got to the description of the bear trap, he froze.

"Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't recall you mentioning that, back when everyone was losing their heads over those traps."  
"I didn't think I had proof to connect it," Mori said.  
"I'm sure you know this, but for a man who chats around with ghosts and makes plans based on dreams he has, you are painfully skeptical."

"I'm working on it," sighed Mori. "Anyway there's more. When I found those traps--oh, first I should finish about the ghost. She said she'd gotten lost. She was out with a group, sketching flowers, and got separated somehow. She said she lost her sketchbook, and I guess she was looking for it, when she stepped in the trap."

Onuma winced, hissing in air between his teeth. "Did they find her?"  
"I'm not sure. She didn't seem to think her family knew what happened to her. She asked me if I would pass on word to her brother, in someplace called Liverpool."

Onuma blinked at him. "I've heard of that place. Quite a long ways off, overseas. A big city, from what I hear."  
"She said if I ever found her sketchbook, to send it there. I didn't expect I ever would, but...."

Onuma glanced down at the weathered, leather-bound book in Mori's hands.  
"You're sure that's it?"

"When I found those traps, off the main forest trail....well--," Mori tipped his chin toward Arai, "--he almost found them, first. We'd stopped to rest, and he saw an orange lily, growing up out of the snow. He took off, to go look at it. I didn't even think--." 

Mori had to stop a moment, shake that memory out of his head before it could ruin his composure. Just one more step, and he had the rest of his life, to be haunted by that.

"I saw that lady again, there. She was the one who pointed out the traps. I--I probably never would have seen them. Anyway, when I saw the lily, I knew what happened to her wasn't just an accident." His hands only shook a little, opening up the sketchbook then, handing it off to Onuma.

After studying the painting of lily intently, and perusing the telltale poem down the side, Onuma pulled in a long breath. He stared at the image, still and quiet, and then slowly shook his head. "I swear, between the two of you, I don't know whose luck is more stupendous. And that raving idiot just gave this to the kid?"

"If it weren't for a ghost, no one ever would've suspected anything," said Mori. "Gregor thought he'd gotten away with murder, I guess. The question now, is what do I do with it?"

Onuma glanced up. "You're not going to turn it in, at the constable's?"  
"It's not really their biggest concern right now, is it? If they search the estate, I bet they find more traps matching the ones from the trail. So they'll know Gregor set them, case closed. If they'd ever found this lady's remains, it would've been all over the village. Someone would have mentioned it, when I brought those traps in."

"If the folks in town ever been searching for her, I'm sure I would have heard about it," Onuma mused.

"I could turn this over, but what if it just gets filed away, or lost?" said Mori. "That doesn't help the ghost. And I promised I would help her."  
"I don't suppose she wrote an address in here," Onuma murmured, leafing through the pages.

"If she did, I can't read it. Do you recognize that writing?"  
Onuma pursed his lips and shook his head, still studying. "Long time ago, I had some acquaintances who would. But--." He shrugged one shoulder, with a pinched not-quite smile.

"Same here," said Mori, thinking of his cousin, and all those tutors.  
"These the flowers the kid was taking care of?" Onuma pointed to one of the sketches, frowning curiously.  
"Yeah. What are they?"  
"No idea. Looks like some kind of hybrid. Reminds me of one of those flycatcher species. Never saw one like this, though."

Recalling the leathery slithering of all those leaves, Mori wouldn't have been at all surprised to learn those flowers were carnivorous. And he didn't think that knowing whatever Gregor had intended for them, would help him sleep at night, either.

"I suggest you hang on to this, for now," Onuma finally decided, handing the sketchbook back to Mori. "Give it a few weeks, and everyone will know a lot more about that tenant. We'll know who he kept company with, where he stayed last time he was here. Bad characters like that, their past catches up to them sooner or later. If anyone else in this province had trouble with him, we're bound to learn about it before long."

"I doubt I'll be coming back here, for awhile." Mori looked over at Arai again, smooth cheeks as pale as the sheets covering his curled, sleeping shape. The doctor had made it fairly clear that there wasn't anything he could do for Arai, that Mori couldn't do just as well in the safety and comfort of the cottage. And as soon as Arai could reasonably make the trip, Mori wanted to take him there. To tell him, Look, this is all yours now. To hold him close through the night, and talk to him, and not have to mind whether anyone might be watching.

"Didn't figure you would," said Onuma. "But I'll be back and forth. If I hear anything, I'll come let you know."

**

On the last night of Obon, Mori reluctantly left Arai in the care of Onuma and one of the shrine's priests for awhile, and headed down to the spot not far from the village bridge, where subdued groups of villagers were setting little candle rafts afloat on the river, to guide their loved ones and ancestors back to the next world.

He exchanged nods with a few people he knew, passing by, and was aware of curious looks and whispers among those he wasn't acquainted with. Practically all of the village knew him by reputation, as the reclusive farmer who'd taken over a place no one else would've claimed. But thanks to his discretion and quiet habits, not many could have put a face to the gossip. 

That was changed now, of course. Before long, they would all know him for his involvement at that infamous estate as well. His name and his face would stay in all their minds, and the anonymity he'd so carefully maintained all these years would soon be at an end.

He could only hope that by now, if anyone from his old life had ever been searching for him, they had given up.

**

Once he reached the river, he joined the others in lighting and floating out rafts. One for Yamato-sama. One for Ikasu, and the nameless foreign lady whose sketchbook he still hid in his travel pack. One for the first owner of the cottage, who had appeared in his dream, and one for the noble lady, with her fan and long layered robes.

He had always lit more lanterns than most other people, during Obon. The ghosts he met had never asked him to, but usually they were the ones that everyone else had forgotten about. Whether the lanterns did them any tangible good, none had ever told him. But Mori supposed it was--as with many things--the thought that counted, mostly. Having someone remember you, when you were all alone. He chose to believe that those gestures mattered for something.

As the hushed somber groups came and went at the water's edge, Mori stood and watched the rafts until they floated out of sight, around the river bend. From the corner of his eye, he saw others doing the same; some alone, some in groups, clinging close to one another. All of them watching the light of their hopes, their faith that the next life was a better place than this one, bobbing bravely off down the dark waters, into the unknown.

For as long as it took to pay his respects, Mori was able to keep a curtain firmly drawn across his thoughts. Separating this ritual, and the people he observed it for, from any notion of that small room in the shrine, where a certain person lay so still. He refused to think about Arai in this context. He would not, for even a fleeting instant, let himself entertain the notion that next year, he could be back here again, releasing a floating light to guide someone else.

As soon as his attention began to wander from the scene at hand, and that curtain in his mind wavered, Mori breathed his last prayer of peace for the dead and turned away from the river, making his way back to the main streets of the village, and his temporary haven.

He hadn't gotten far, before a large rugged shape stepped out of the shadows, headed in the direction he'd just come from. He knew, before they met in the spill of light from a nearby open door, that it was Fukuo, and paused to bow politely to the man.

"Sorry to hear about the kid," he told Mori, after they exchanged somber greetings. "Guess you're takin' him back up the hill?"  
"When the doctor says it's safe," Mori answered, wondering if this would be an appropriate time to make travel arrangements. It would certainly save him having to go find Fukuo later.  
The man nodded, as if he'd expected as much, taking less time than usual to work out his reply. "Come by the stables when you're ready. If I'm still out, the wife will get you sorted."

"Oh. Thank you." The quick offer caught Mori slightly off-guard. "I'd be very grateful, of course. Are you planning to travel soon?"  
"Constable wants to visit that estate, tomorrow. He's put together a big group to come help."

It wasn't a surprise, particularly. It stood to reason, that the constable would have to go investigate the scene for himself. But Mori hadn't considered that anyone he knew personally might be going along. For just a second, he was tempted to volunteer to go help Fukuo. Because he'd been there, he'd seen the estate at its worst, and the thought of someone he considered a friend going there was more than a little disconcerting.

But again, Fukuo was ahead of him. "Don't suppose you'd have any advice," he mentioned impassively, enormous hands stuck in his pockets, looking off down the road.

"Make sure the sun's up." It was more of a reflex than a proper answer, popping out of his mouth before he'd even thought about it. But Fukuo only bobbed his beard in agreement. "Take some salt," Mori added, and Fukuo didn't even raise an eyebrow.

"Yep. Planned on that. Got some ofuda from the shrine, too."  
Mori blinked, and Fukuo turned, registering his look of surprise. "Something's wrong with that place. Worse than your property used to be." He felt around in his right pocket and frowned, then stuck a hand inside his vest. "Yep. Here we go," he said, producing a small crinkled scroll, and carefully unrolling it.

"Couple years back, I was sortin' out the attic. Came on some old papers. Great-grandfather used to do some trading up there." He shifted over so the light from the nearby doorway reached the paper, gesturing at Mori to come look at it.

"Thought it was strange, nobody in town rememberin' the name of that place. Nobody talked about it much. But I know when I first found this, the name was familiar. This mornin', I pulled it back out, just to have a look."

The paper was old and crumbling at the edges, but from what Mori could tell, the ink was still perfectly legible. It looked like a bill of goods--a tea shipment, to be exact--transferred by a Fukuo to Hidamura village. Mori read over the contract agreement, the itemized costs, and identified Fukuo's great-grandfather's signature. But having never seen such a document before, he couldn't make out the reason Fukuo had shown it to him.  
"Sorry," he said, "I'm not sure what I should be looking for."

"The customer." Fukuo pointed to several blank spots on the page. "It's not on here anymore. Contract like this always has where the shipment came from. See where it says 'origin of goods'? Nothing's there. And where the customer signed--," pointing to another blank spot.

Mori moved further into the light, holding the paper up and inspecting it closely. Now that Fukuo had shown him the blanks, he could see that each one had only a slight smear, to suggest that something had once been there. As though someone had dropped water on the ink, and blotted it almost completely away.

Out of curiosity, he held the paper up to the light, to see if some impression of the characters might still show through, but nothing did.

"It's been in a sealed tube, in a trunk," Fukuo told him. "I've got the only key."  
"But when you found it, the names were all there?"  
Fukuo nodded. "Looked through some other old papers today, but nothing's wrong with those."

All at once, Mori thought of the blank scroll hanging in the tokonoma, back in the cottage. Although truly, this was more similar to another mystery that had plagued him lately. How the disappearance of that estate family's name and Arai's name could possibly be related, he had no idea, but seeing the physical proof, he felt there was no way it was mere coincidence.

And then the obvious answer gripped him, deep in the pit of his gut. What if they were literally related? What if Arai were some descendant of that poor family--most likely, the last descendant--and the loss of his name had erased it from everywhere? From old records, and people's memories alike.

Arai had been found almost a year and a half ago. Two years ago, according to Fukuo, that family's name was still on that scroll. Could he have been on his way to claiming an inheritance, perhaps, when he'd gotten so terribly lost in the forest?

And to think, that the place which could have been his home, was where he had almost lost his life, instead....

He was jostled from his thoughts by Fukuo catching his elbow, slipping the scroll from his fingers and frowning closely at him. "All right, there?"

Mori realized he'd been tilting sideways in his shock, staring off at nothing. He swallowed, and struggled to collect himself.  
"Sorry. No, I'm okay. I just...." Watching Fukuo roll up his scroll to tuck it back away, Mori trailed off, wondering. "Are you sure, nobody remembers that name?"

"Nobody 'round here. That land agent tried to look it up, doin' the contract with the tenant. Village records don't have it. None of the old-timers remembers. Hell, I keep thinkin' it's right on the tip of my tongue. But it just slips off."

It was so like the description that strange man--the guardian, whatever that meant--had told him. Obviously the estate still existed, independently of that family's name. But the family name itself had been utterly erased from the world.

And now Arai, if Mori's unspeakable suspicion was correct, could very well disappear in just the same way.  
"If there is any danger in where you're going," he told Fukuo, "don't expect you'll necessarily see it. Make sure to leave someone outside the property, in case something goes wrong. If anyone starts to feel ill, or upset, get them off the estate as soon as you can." He was rattling off warnings as they occurred to him, trying not to forget anything important, but pressed by a sudden, dire urgency to get back to the shrine and see Arai for himself.

"Be especially careful of that hothouse," he rushed on. "And the hounds. I saw...." He had to stop for a mental count. "Eight, I think. And don't drink the water there, Kuki-chan said it was bad."

From beneath the tangled line of his eyebrows, Fukuo watched Mori intently, now and then giving a curt nod to show he understood. Mostly, Mori wanted to tell him to be wary of anything and everything in that place. Better yet, not to go there at all--at least not without a cadre of powerful exorcists. But he sensed that Fukuo knew this anyway; it was why the man had come for his advice in the first place. The estate was not the sort of place any sane person would want to go voluntarily, but unfortunately, someone had to.

He had only one last point, the most important, but the one most likely to get him labeled a lunatic, even by the stonefaced Fukuo. Perhaps if he'd been in a steadier frame of mind, he could have found a reasonable way of putting it. Or perhaps not.

"I don't know if this will be a problem for you. But if anyone is injured, even just a scratch, get them out immediately. Cover the wound, and whatever happens, don't let their blood be spilled on that ground."

For the first time, Fukuo broke eye contact, to glance down at the bandages wrapping Mori's left forearm. "That what happened to you?"  
"It's just a graze. I wouldn't be here, if that had happened to me."

Fukuo glanced back up at him sharply, brows lifting a fraction, and Mori knew the man was drawing his own conclusions, about who might have suffered the end Mori had hinted at. For the sake of making his point, he knew he would tell Fukuo, if he asked for confirmation. And he knew he had no right to ask Fukuo to keep it a secret.

But he had long appreciated the penetrating intelligence hidden behind Fukuo's lumbering appearance and stolid nature, and the man showed it then, with nothing but a slow, precise nod of understanding.

"That it, then?"  
"Just....be very careful. Please."  
Fukuo drew himself up straight, and surprised Mori with a deep, solemn bow. "Thank you for your guidance, Morinozuka-san. Please consider me in your debt, for any service you may require."

Mori stifled a sigh, thinking his rambled warnings were hardly worth any debt, and that really he'd just like for no one else to be hurt by that place. The village had seen more than its share of tragedy in the last few days. But frustratingly, at the same time, he did want to ask a favor of Fukuo.

"I don't want to burden Fukuo-san," he said, copying the man's bow. "I understand you'll be busy in the morning. But if it isn't any trouble, the use of a small cart and a horse would be a very great help."

"You want to leave tomorrow?"  
"Unless Kamio-sensei says we shouldn't," Mori nodded. "I have a feeling it would be best." In truth, the feeling Mori had was a barely controlled frenzy, to get Arai back to the cottage before he could be suddenly erased, just like the names on Fukuo's scroll. Now that he'd seen a concrete example of what he'd been warned about, it seemed urgent that he get Arai to the safest possible place, as soon as he could. If he weren't so convinced of the dangers of traveling the forest at night, and on this night especially, he would have prepared to leave within the hour.

"I'll be off at first light. But the wife can drive you up. Come by when you're ready."  
"Thank you. I'm sorry for the trouble." He would have to see to it, that the cart returned laden with all the produce he could pull together on short notice.

"Sorry to keep you," Fukuo answered. "Hope to see the kid doin' better."  
"Travel safely," said Mori, with all the sincerity he possessed.


	45. Chapter 45

Fukuo Akemi was--on first impression, at least--startlingly unlike her husband in every way. She was the sort of delicate, refined beauty who might have been perfectly at home in a tale of a princess disguised as a commoner. Indeed, even in her plain neat travel clothes, she outshone every lady in Mori's memory of the governor's palace, and her manner would have been perfectly suited to such company.

But beneath the soft-spoken gentility and lovely features, there was genuine intelligence and keen insight. And anyone who judged this lady too delicate to be a carter's wife, had never seen her drive a packed wagon across the river in full spring flood, or bargain with the blacksmith over the cost of horseshoes and carriage repairs. It was jokingly said around the village, that when Akemi-san invited one to tea, they should leave their wallet at home, lest they find themselves handing it all over to her, thinking it was their idea all along.

It was partly for this reason that Mori was out in the vegetable plot, hurriedly filling baskets in the muggy late morning, almost as soon as they arrived back at the cottage. First, he had carried Arai into the front room, putting down blankets for him to lay on, before opening the windows to air the place out, and starting a pot of water to boil for tea. Akemi, who had been genuinely dismayed at the young man's condition, offered to sit with him, while Mori caught up on the necessary chores which had gone abandoned the last few days--collecting wood for the kitchen and bath fires, rolling out Arai's futon back in the bedroom and making it up, and preparing a quick meal for the three of them.

Every time he passed through the front room, he glanced over in hopes that Arai might have wakened. But there was no change from the deep slumber he'd fallen into, after Mori had brought him from the shrine, out to the cart, two hours ago. So he served tea for Akemi, apologizing for the motley assortment of food he'd scrounged from the pantry, and then headed out to fill the baskets for her to take home.

Though she was too self-possessed to betray any sign of it, Mori knew it was a sacrifice for the lady to leave her home while Fukuo was heading off into unknown dangers at the estate. And since it was clear Fukuo had intended to give him this trip through the forest, in exchange for advice that Mori prayed might actually help him, Mori felt it was important to send back something tangible in return.

Five ripe melons, all the strawberries that were fit to eat, a small bushel of green beans, and another of ripe tomatoes. The squash wasn't ready, but he had an overabundance of small potatoes, eggplants, and carrots, and so set half of those aside as well. After another quick check in the front room, where Akemi sat serenely next to Arai's makeshift bed, Mori trotted out to the pear orchard and filled three medium baskets of ripe pears. Two for the shrine, as he had promised before leaving, and one for the Fukuo household. They weren't the best of the season--those would come in another few weeks--but they would hopefully do for now.

He couldn't be away from the cottage for long. His irrational, desperate hope that Arai might miraculously wake up, or show any sign of improvement once they'd reached the property had already deflated. Yet he still didn't want to be away from the young man's side a second longer than necessary.

In the orchard, he tarried though. Once the last basket was full, he stopped a moment. Looking at the trees, the brilliant blue sky overhead, and the patches of wild grass skirting the orchard. Everywhere he looked, the summer morning hummed with boundless life. But inside, his heart was dark and tender as a bruise, and his hope was only a flickering candle against a world of endless night.

"Please." He didn't know who or what he spoke to. Didn't even realize he'd spoken, until hearing the rasp of his dry tight throat. "Please help him. Help me make him better." 

The ground was firm beneath his knees, and his fists were bleach-white on his thighs. He would not weep, like the last time he'd knelt here this way; sobbing his apologies to the fox, or to himself, he would never be completely sure. If things got to that point again, he would simply lay down in the shade of these trees, and never get up.

"Please take care of him. He deserves it so much more than I do."

He remembered Yamato, wandering off between these very trees in his dream, and wished like anything that the man could walk out now, and smile kindly, and tell Mori it would all be okay. But all he saw were the long rows of slender tree trunks, and the thicket of swaying green leaves.

According to Yamato, there were answers yet to be found. All was not lost, yet. Arai had awakened this morning, and he could do it again. There was no reason he should sit here and grieve, when grief had not yet come to pass.

It was not a comfort exactly, but it was a possibility. Arai still hadn't disappeared yet, and until the end came, Mori could not give up even the slenderest chance that something would happen. That somehow, some way, he would find what he had to do.

And with that in mind, he breathed deep, pushed himself up from the ground, and lifted his bushel again.

**

"I understand now, why my husband enjoyed his trips to Morinozuka-san's home," Akemi observed with a quiet smile, after Mori returned to the cottage.

Having never noticed any particular sign of Fukuo's favor himself, Mori could only nod politely as he poured more tea for them both.

"There is a great feeling of peacefulness here," the woman went on, looking around the rather bare room, windows open to the fresh warm breeze. "One feels as though the world's troubles cannot reach this place."

"Akemi-san is gracious with her praise," Mori said, even as he wished her words were really true. "I hope you will feel welcome to visit us again, when I can offer better hospitality."

Akemi tipped her teacup to her lips in a graceful, demure gesture, and set it down as lightly as a feather settling to the tabletop. "If my husband and I did not already respect Morinozuka-san for his integrity in business dealings, I know that we could trust him by the character of his home. Many people do not account for the truths which their home reveals about them. Their public demeanor may be agreeable, but if their household is unhappy, one knows to take care in dealing with them."

"I agree with that conclusion," Mori answered. "Though I'm not sure I can take the credit for this place. Since I first came here, it has had a character of its own."

"But you have lived here several years, yes?" Akemi smiled. "And your presence has not changed it for the worse. All the people who came here before you, said this was an unfriendly place. But even this young person--," turning with a sympathetic, slightly sad look down on Arai, sleeping as if he'd been spellbound. "I have heard that even he was happier here than anyone had seen him before."

Mori struggled to keep his aching desperation out of his expression. He shouldn't burden this visitor with his regrets and failures, especially not when she was concealing her own worries for the person she loved. "I'm glad if that's true. If he's happy to stay here, I wish to give him permanent ownership of this property."

Akemi gave a small nod, as if this were not unexpected news, though it was the first time Mori had mentioned his intention to anyone living, besides Onuma. "I don't wish to trouble Morinozuka-san with my useless opinions," she answered. "But perhaps he will consider staying on here as well. Everyone knows Morinozuka-san is too generous with his trade, but this dear boy--please forgive my directness--but he is even worse." 

The criticism was tempered by the sweetest of smiles, as she went on. "Morinozuka-san gives more value than he receives, with his excellent goods. But this boy gives all of himself to others, and never thinks to keep anything back. It is not a wise way to do business, and I'm sorry to say it is not a healthy way to live." Bringing her hands to her lap, she bowed across the table at Mori.

"I apologize for saying foolish things, out of turn. But many people would be encouraged, to know that Morinozuka-san remained here to guide this young man, and help him make wise decisions."

It took a bit to filter through Mori's general air of unhappiness and brief confusion, before he understood that Akemi was anticipating something he had not yet been at leisure to consider. Namely, the obstacles which could arise in the future, with his and Arai's reputations in the village. Not that it was particularly important to Mori at present; all he cared about now, was Arai's continued survival.

But someday, if things turned out for the best, Arai would still want to know he had friends among the villagers. It would hurt him immeasurably, to be shunned or judged by gossip. And there was the practical matter of their day-to-day living to consider. They would still need to trade for their winter goods. The vegetable plot and orchard would have to feed and clothe them both, and in order for that to work, they would have to maintain trustworthy relations down in the village.

Far from being useless, Akemi's advice was both extraordinarily sound and far-seeing. Even with the few advocates Arai had in the village, the general populace might not so readily accept him as someone to trade fairly with. Thanks to his history with people there, and his lack of a history overall, he would go on being subject to an outsider's treatment in most places. The fact that he had moved off to a remote property whose own history had once been in question, would likely not help matters any.

Being acquainted with the unhappy realities of the world, Mori knew there would be people--the same sort of people who existed everywhere--who would prefer that this strange unfortunate boy had simply disappeared altogether. And no doubt they would make their feelings known, in one way or another.

But between the lines of Fukuo Akemi's advice, was a rather shrewd strategy. Those who would question Arai's right to be among them, had not dared speak an untoward word about the farmer Morinozuka. Whether it was because they feared the man who had subdued an unlucky haunted property, or because they knew that Mori himself was utterly indifferent to social slights and baseless criticisms; either way, Mori's sponsorship of Arai could make all the difference to Arai's future relationship with the village. It may even help ensure that one day, Arai would be accepted in his own right, among those people.

Social acceptance had never been especially high on Mori's priorities, but without it, Arai's happiness would be incomplete. All that he had given of himself so far would be for nothing, if he had to suffer ostracism whenever he appeared in public, for the rest of his life.

And there was another purpose to Akemi's suggestion, one which cemented Mori's appreciation and respect for her. In urging Mori to consider the future, she was offering him her confidence that--in spite of the current situation--there was a future indeed worth looking forward to. 

It served as a reminder, in practical unsentimental terms, not to abandon hope. It was hard to know whether her motive was compassionate, or was more in consideration of the business relationship she wished to maintain. At any rate, he thanked her for her consideration, at which point she demurred, and apologized for overstaying her welcome.

He saw her out to the clearing, and stood by in case she needed help hitching the horse back to the cart again. Of course she accomplished the task without trouble, and then smiled when she checked the baskets Mori had loaded into the cart.  
"I expected Morinozuka-san would over-compensate me for such an easy trip. This year looks like your finest crop so far."

"It's the best I can offer, for having to trouble you today. I'm not sure I deserve Akemi-san's consideration, but I am deeply thankful for what you have done for my friend and myself."

After climbing into the cart and taking up the reins, Akemi tipped her head and gave Mori a serious, assessing look. "My husband and I believe that you are a sincere man, Morinozuka-san. Do you mind if I ask whether you are a praying man?"

"On occasion," Mori admitted.  
"If you will forgive me for making an impertinent request, may I ask that you pray for my husband's safe return home?"  
"Of course I will. I had already planned to."

Akemi nodded, and favored him with another angelic smile. "That is how you have deserved our consideration. Please do not worry over it in the future. We will also be praying, to see that young man strong and well again soon."

Not knowing what else to say, Mori bowed. "Be careful, on your way back. I look forward to hearing that Fukuo-san is also home soon."

"I'll send the news with Onuma-san," Akemi promised. "Farewell, for now."

As he had always done with Fukuo, Mori watched the cart cross the clearing and enter the path between the high leafy trees. Keeping his ears tuned to the quiet cottage behind him, he observed Akemi's slight form, swaying with the trundling cart, until she was entirely gone from sight in the shady forest.

Afterwards he turned, taking in the view of the cottage, with the vegetable plot to one side, and the unfinished hothouse off to the other side.

It had been days since he'd thought about the hothouse. And he had very little desire to think about it now. During the spring and summer he had worked on it, here and there. Getting the roof in, plank by plank. Pitched, but not yet shingled. The walls were mostly done, though he had yet to seal them, or put in the framing for the glass. There still wasn't any door on it.

And there might never be. After what he'd learned about Arai, the hothouse was a folly. He couldn't even leave Hito's potted zinnia near Arai's bedside, for fear it might kill him. And considering his experience in the last hothouse he'd worked in, Mori could hardly expect Arai would even want to set foot in another one, as long as he lived.

He wiped a hand down his face, tired and heartsick, feeling like his inadequacies were so much larger than he was . He didn't know what to do about the structure he'd sunk so much time and labor, and hope into. He couldn't think straight about it now.

With a heavy sigh, he dragged his feet toward the cottage porch. He should cook something, work on getting Arai to eat. First things first, and all that.

**

"Takashi? Takashi, you here?"

"Right here," Mori called, taking the pot off the fire, before hurrying into the next room. Ever since their trip back from the estate, whenever Arai had awakened and didn't see Mori, he called for him. And whenever he called, it was like a cord suddenly yanked taut in Mori's insides. He dropped whatever he was doing, and went directly to Arai's side.

"Hey, you want something to eat?" Mori dragged up the smile he kept stored away, solely for Arai's comfort. "I was just putting together some breakfast."

"It's breakfast time?" Arai had pushed up on his elbows, eye-level to the tabletop, with his sleep-mussed hair standing out in tufts.  
"Or lunch," Mori shrugged. "It's almost done."

Arai tried to suppress a yawn and failed, then squinted around himself, frowning. "We're not in the shrine now."  
"No, we rode back to my place today. Remember, this morning I told you?"

"Thought that was a dream," Arai murmured, still blinking the sleep from his eyes. Then his gaze focused on Mori. "It's not a dream now, is it?"

This question had not been uncommon, over the past few days. Though Arai gave no outward sign that he was dreaming, according to him, the dreams were vivid and convincing as real life. This admission had caused Mori considerable worry, though he did his best not to show it. "No. You're awake now," he assured Arai. "Here, I made some tea earlier."

He poured out a cup from the pot he'd made for Akemi not two hours ago, since he hadn't yet gotten around to retrieving the pot and cups. "It isn't hot. I'll make some more for us to have with lunch."

With a bit of effort, Arai pushed himself to sit up, aiming toward the teacup Mori had set in front of him. "Thanks." He tipped it back and drank it all off in a few thirsty swallows, and as soon as he set it down, Mori refilled it, emptying the last of the pot.

"We're at your house, now?" Arai took up the cup again, still looking around somewhat dazedly. Thinking how disorienting it must be, to go to sleep in one place and wake up somewhere completely different, especially while confusing one's dreams with actuality, Mori nodded patiently.

"I thought it would be easier, if you could rest awhile here." Deciding he would save the detailed explanations for when Arai was more coherent.

"I've rested a lot," said Arai, frowning into his tea, before deciding to finish it off.  
"You've earned a lot of rest," Mori assured him. "Kamio-sensei said it could be awhile, before you recovered all the way."

"I don't feel sick anymore. Just. Really tired." He sighed, and rubbed his eye with one hand. "My eyes kinda hurt."  
"I'll get a cold rag you can put on, after you eat. You can lay down in the back room, if you want."

"That's where your bed's at."  
"I put your bed back there too," Mori nodded. "Unless you'd rather sleep in here again?"  
Looking both tired and puzzled, Arai considered this. "How long am I gonna stay here?"

"As long as you want to."  
"I'm not supposed to go anywhere else?"  
Mori tried very hard not to tense up, at that. "Do you want to go somewhere else?"

"No." Arai shook his head. "I just thought, 'cause we were at the shrine. I was gonna stay there."  
Mori tried to fathom how Arai had concluded such a thing, but all reasoning failed him. "You didn't think I would leave you there?"

He definitely tensed up, when Arai just gave a tiny shrug, and wouldn't meet his eyes. "People say when there's no place else for somebody to go, sometimes they go live with the monks. I guess....I thought that's what I was supposed to do."

Mori couldn't imagine when in the past few days Arai would have been cogent enough to sort that out. Or why on earth he wouldn't have ever mentioned it.   
"I'm sorry," he said, flabbergasted. "I didn't realize you'd thought that. The only reason we stayed at the shrine, is because the clinic was full. I didn't have anywhere else to keep you, where Kamio-sensei could visit."

"Oh," said Arai in a small voice, concentrating hard on his teacup.

"I _never_ intended to leave you there," Mori added, in case the point wasn't clear enough.

"Okay," Arai nodded, suddenly meek in the face of Mori's insistence.  
Mori eased back from the table, reminding himself of the harrowing trial Arai had barely survived, and how following that with three days of dead sleep was enough to badly confuse anyone. Unless he could stay calm, Mori certainly wouldn't be helping matters any.

"Let me finish up with lunch," he said, grasping for the lighter demeanor he'd started the conversation out with. "It should be done soon."  
Still looking down at his hands, Arai nodded again.

**

Since his rescue from the estate, Arai had been eating a little more with every meal, though as far was Mori concerned, it was still barely enough to keep a mouse alive. He hated to badger his friend, or tax his meager energy by upsetting him. But the sight of his sharp cheekbones, and the way his clothing hung from his frame was sometimes--always, in truth--too much for Mori. When he caught Arai poking his rice around the plate instead of eating it, Mori would start picking extra morsels to drop on his plate. Encouraging him to try this piece of seared fish, or taste that bit of fried tofu.

Once they'd observed this, the monks at the shrine had temporarily forgone their frugal ways, and helped Mori out with the conspiracy. Adding special touches to their guests' meals, and slipping in a modest variety of delicacies, just so that Mori could slip them bit by bit onto Arai's plate.

The strategy didn't always work. Sometimes when Arai had awakened, he might stay alert for all of a couple of hours, before drifting off again. Other times, it took considerable persistence to wake him up at all, and even more to keep him awake long enough to eat more than a bite or two. During those times, Mori had discovered that offering to feed Arai would generally motivate the young man to wake up enough to feed himself, or at least make more than a halfhearted effort at it. For reasons he did not explain (and which Mori didn't pry into), Arai disliked the prospect of someone else feeding him.

It was out of respect for this personal quirk that Mori faced an interesting challenge, back at home in his own kitchen. He'd learned that rice was generally too frustrating and tiresome for Arai to bother with for long. Likewise with slippery foods which eluded one's chopsticks. Soups and stews were good, since Arai could drink most of it, and pick the rest from his bowl. But for this first meal, he didn't have the time to make a proper stew. What he did have, was plenty of rice.

In the interest of making the most of Arai's brief time awake, Mori decided to try something he had liked before. He mixed some honey in with the rice he'd cooked to make it sticky, and added a helping of nuts, chopped fresh pear and strawberries.

 

"What happened to all the plants?" Arai asked, when Mori returned from the kitchen bearing the lunch tray. He was looking off toward the empty windowsill next to where his bed had been previously, having drawn a blanket from his pallet around his legs and over his shoulders.

Mori noted this with some concern, but answered the question as he knelt to set the tray on the table. "I put everything outside, once it warmed up. You should see that one tomato plant. It's huge now."

"What about the baby pear trees? Did you plant them?"

"I'll be planting one of them soon, I think." Here he hesitated, having worried for several months how Arai might take the news about the seedlings. He'd been fond of them, after all, and for the time being Mori was extremely reluctant to give him any unhappy news. "Maybe sometime next week. You want to come out and watch?"

"Okay." Though Arai was present in the room, he seemed--as always lately--somewhere farther away. Watching out the opened window, eyes following nothing in particular, and finally turning to watch Mori set the bowl, cup, and utensils in front of him.

It stung Mori, to think that there had been a time when Arai would have been overjoyed at the chance to help plant a tree. He would have been full of questions and speculations, hardly able to sit still for his excitement.

That person was not gone, he told himself firmly, keeping his mask of pleasant patience fixed on his face. That sweet, cheerful young man was tired, he'd lost his bearings temporarily. But he was _still here_.

"I've never made this with pears before," he told Arai, taking up his own bowl, feeling his cheeks ache from his ill-fitting expression. "Hope it tastes okay."

"Thank you," Arai murmured, reaching for his chopsticks, at which point Mori ducked his head so as not to see how those thin hands trembled, trying to hold the utensils straight. Having learned that the effort didn't seem to bother Arai as much as Mori noticing it, he simply affected not to notice, while waiting attentively in case his help was needed.

 

"You're not cold, are you?" Mori finally asked, after they'd eaten awhile in silence.  
Arai picked through his rice, concentrating on scooping up another chunk of pear. "I'm okay."

To Mori's sense, the front room was warm. He'd been perspiring in the kitchen, over the wood fire, but it wasn't so hot in here. Still, Arai remained hunched in his blankets, like it was a freezing morning in January instead of hot July outside.

"I have some warmer clothes, if you'd like." He'd already done a quick pass through his closet, setting aside the sleeping robe he'd loaned Arai before, and some things he could wear in the daytime, since all he currently had were the clothes on his back: the simple cotton trousers and shirt one of the monks had offered to trade for the more or less identical outfit Arai had worn away from the estate. 

Perhaps it was unreasonably cautious of him, but Mori had asked the monk to keep or discard the clothes from the estate. Personally, he would have burned them, rather than carry the taint of that place back to his home. But if the monks could make use of the outfit, he figured it would do.

"It's all right. I'm good," came the answer, in the same quiet neutral tone Arai always spoke with lately. It was a voice Mori was coming to find increasingly discouraging, and he would have sighed at Arai's total lack of feeling on any subject. But he feared that any sign of dissatisfaction on his part would only lead Arai to retreat further into himself. And though Arai would not admit to being cold, he did appear for once interested in his food, and the last thing Mori wanted was to disrupt his appetite with the slightest suggestion of disagreement.

So he let the matter go, and picked at his own food, and wondered whether it was better to keep attempting normal conversation, or if Arai would actually prefer quiet.

After a few minutes, he tried more conversation. "I lit the fire for the bath, when we got in. It won't be hot for awhile yet, but you're welcome to a soak later on, if you want."

"Hm," Arai gazed into his bowl, like he was looking into a deep well, full of darkness and profound mysteries.

Mori swallowed some tea, counted to fifty. "When I was out in the garden earlier, I couldn't believe the weeds. Just a few days, and they're taking over. Later this afternoon, I should do some pulling."

Arai scooped up a strawberry, watched it fall off his chopsticks back into the bowl, and stared at it blankly for several seconds. "I missed your food."

Having given up expecting any responses, Mori blinked. "Oh. Well. There's plenty more."  
Setting down his bowl and chopsticks, Arai rubbed his eyes with both hands. "I'm sleepy again. Sorry."

"Nothing to be sorry about. Did you get enough to eat?" Mori stole a glance at Arai's bowl, finding it nearer to empty than he'd expected.  
"Yeah. Thanks. It was good." It was clear Arai was out of energy now; his voice was a faint mumble, and his eyelids looked too heavy to keep open. Mori set aside his teacup and rose to help him off for a nap.

"I'll be in the kitchen, or in front, if you need anything," he assured, supporting Arai with one arm, back to his bedroom, and lifting the mosquito netting he'd managed to stretch over both their adjacent futons, so he could crawl under with the blanket he'd dragged in.

He helped pull back the bedclothes, as Arai was already halfway to sleeping, and lacked the coordination to settle himself in. He slumped over onto his side and stretched out with a yawn, fighting to blink his eyes open as Mori pulled the quilt and the extra blanket up over him.

"How are your eyes?" Mori asked. "Still want that cold rag?"  
"S'okay," Arai mumbled, tucking his arm up under his head and drawing his knees up.  
"Warm enough?"  
A noncommittal "hm" was all the answer he got, and Mori assumed he'd dropped off instantly. He was just getting up to fetch an extra blanket, just in case, but then another muzzy grumble stopped him.

"Mm. T'kashi?"  
"Yes?"  
One eye cracked open to a slit, but failed to focus. "Forgot. My box?"

Mori realized he too had lately forgotten about Arai's box of keepsakes, which he'd retrieved from the estate. Every time he'd come across it in his pack over the past few days, Arai had been asleep, and Mori had never thought to mention it to him.

"I still have it. Hang on, one second. I'll bring it for you."

He didn't expect Arai to still be awake when he returned, but when he hurried back to the bedroom, Arai stirred, and tried feebly to raise up.  
"Got it?"  
"Yeah, right here." Mori ducked under the netting to kneel at the bedside. "See?"

Arai squinted sleepily, reaching one hand out from the covers, fingers bumping clumsily over the wooden lid. Then he blinked up at Mori with a look of exhausted gratitude which came nearer to breaking Mori than he would ever admit to.  
"Thank you," he whispered, falling back to his side, hand coming up to rub his eyes, as they slipped shut once more. Mori couldn't help but reach out then, stroke the rumpled hair off Arai's forehead, as he tucked the box under his arm.

"Sleep well," he said quietly, laying his fingers to Arai's pale cheek (no more fever, but it would be some while before he could dismiss the habit of making sure). With a soft sigh, Arai relaxed into the bed, sinking into real sleep this time, and Mori carefully drew the blankets up to his chin, before sitting back, and resuming the vigil which defined his days and nights now.


	46. Chapter 46

He was out in the orchard, on his knees on the hard dry ground, hacking away at the dead roots of that tree stump. Every strike of his spade threw up more gritty dust, and the root was hard as rock, denting the blade. But he had to get what was under the stump. There were secrets--terrible mysteries--buried there, and they'd killed that tree. If he left them to darkness any longer, everything here would die.

The sunset blazed across the parched earth, painting all he could see a deep roasted red, like the end of the world, and all around him were dead brittle branches and dry trunks twisting up like tortured souls out of the cracked soil. He was pouring with sweat, down his chest, down his back, running down into his raw, blistered palms.

But he had to keep digging, or all would be lost. Water would never find this land again, no path from the forest would ever reach here, and those who had lived here would be forever gone. Forgotten.

He drove down with the spade, again and again, until the root shattered like bone, and his spade struck a spark--the impact sending a shock up both his arms--and....

He sucked in a hard breath and woke, wide-eyed, to the wine-red sunset light staining the walls and ceiling of his own bedroom. And Arai, sitting hunched over his crossed legs, head down, breath hitching softly.

Mori swallowed against the dryness in his throat. Remembered he'd just laid down to rest his eyes around noon. He rolled over, pushed himself up, feeling more exhausted than when he'd dozed off.

"What's wrong?" The ragged edges of his voice scratching his throat. "Do you need something?" Scooting over toward Arai, bending down to see his face; the ominous afterimages of that dream still curling uneasily in the space under his heart.

Arai's face was hidden in his hands, elbows propped on his knees, and Mori realized he was weeping. Without sobs or sound, just the occasional congested catch of breath. Instinctively, he curled his arm around Arai's shoulders.  
"Please, what is it? What can I do?"

"It--it's not nighttime now. Is it?" Arai's voice was thin and broken-sounding, and Mori pulled him closer, suddenly fearful for no reason he could name.  
"It's sunset. I think we both napped awhile."

"I don't--I don't know when it is, anymore. I don't know if I'm asleep, or...." A hard sniff and a swallow, and though his words were even, inflectionless, Mori realized the person speaking them was indeed breaking apart.

"It's okay, don't worry," he soothed. "You're still right here, and I'm with you. Maybe if you get up, you'll feel better. We could go outside. I could make some tea."

"Where are we?"  
"Still at my place. You remember, you woke up and we had lunch, earlier?"

There was another sniff, a shudder of breath, and Mori rubbed his hand in a slow, soothing circle over Arai's back, feeling the bumps and curves of his bones under his shirt.

"You brought my box. Before I went to sleep."  
"Yes."  
"But I can't see it. I woke up, and--and I wanted to see it."

Mori leaned in, put a hand on Arai's knee. "It's right here, in your lap."  
"I can't see it," Arai repeated, the words choked in his throat, and that creeping nameless fear cinched tight around Mori's lungs.

He reached for Arai's wrists, too easy to circle with his fingers, as the words rang like a fire bell in his head, _He will fade, He will fade, He will fade_..... 

"Look, right here."

There was no resistance, as Mori tugged Arai's hands from his face, and saw the wet palms and tear-stained cheeks. He pushed the fine, soft hair back from his forehead, needing him to look up, to recognize where he was, who was with him. "Look," he repeated, because he couldn't beg, not right now, _don't go, please don't disappear now, please be with me, you have no idea how important you are, please._

And then Arai lifted his chin. "Takashi?" And Mori's heart stopped.

For a second, the inside of his skull was nothing but a blank white scream of shock, going on forever. The first recognizable thought to hit him was, _doctor, oh god I have to get him to a doctor_ , as his heart kick-started, a painful bone-jolting thump before the gibbering buzz of panic set in. He was picturing the path through the woods, night was coming on, he'd need a light, Arai would have to ride piggyback...

But even as his fight-or-flight response ransacked through the logistics, an awful, quiet voice in his mind told him it would do no good. This was beyond a doctor's help. Beyond the help of any normal person, at all.

His eyes. Those soft, dark hazel eyes that Mori had dreamed of and longed for, and watched for every shade of feeling in Arai's heart....they were gone. 

In their place was a wide staring glaze; no pupil or white. Just pale glassy gold, between the dark fringe of Arai's lashes.

"Takashi?" Arai's brow knit, his wrists turned in Mori's slackened grasp. Hands patting blindly up Mori's arms, because he _couldn't see_ with those eyes anymore.

Mori tried to answer, 'Yes, it's okay', but his throat betrayed him and hauled in a sob instead. He was incapable of words, or reason, all he could do was reach both arms around Arai, pull him in tight, palm cradling the back of his head, as though he had any hope of protecting him. Arai was tensed, breaths coming quick, and Mori knew they couldn't both panic at the same time, they'd be done for, but this was like getting hit by a tsunami after an earthquake; terror in the wake of calamity, just when he thought he could start picking up the pieces.

"Why's it so dark? Why can't I see you?" came the plaintive voice, muffled by Mori's shirt, and Mori found the presence of mind to loosen his grip, so Arai wouldn't suffocate.

"I don't know," he got out. "Maybe--." He bit his lip against the list of comforting lies which sprang to mind, realizing that truly, in some unspeakable way, he knew exactly why Arai's sight had suddenly gone. But he would not say it. Would never tell Arai what he feared most right now.

He was disappearing. Just as Mori had been warned. And even as he resisted the frantic urge to crush him close and tight, Mori understood that so far as he was concerned, the symptoms of disappearance did not matter. What Arai might lose next didn't matter. All that mattered, what Mori must now focus every particle of his existence on, was stopping this.

"Listen," he tried again, pulling himself together, forcing himself to breathe and think, because he could not, would not simply stand by mourning while Arai slipped away from him. "I want you to remember something, okay? Even if you can't see me, I will be right where you are. I won't leave you alone. Understand?"

Arai wriggled against his chest, and Mori loosened his hold further, so Arai could free his arms from between them. "You--you're gonna stay here?"  
"If I go anywhere, I'll bring you with me."

 

"Are we gonna go somewhere?" Arai's hands moved to Mori's sides, clutching at his shirt, clinging to the shape of him. And though Mori was somehow certain a trip to the village would do no good, that wasn't their only recourse for aid.

"I want to go look for something outside, before the sun goes down. You think you can walk with me?"  
"What's outside?"

A secret, Mori thought. A mystery. Something that two people had visited his dreams, to tell him to look for. In one dream, that man had held a shovel. In another, Yamato had walked off into the orchard, after telling Mori what he sought could be right in front of him. And now this most recent dream, like an urgent last-minute reminder. He couldn't imagine it was coincidence. He didn't believe in coincidence, anymore.

The message of that dream, he was certain, was a warning of consequences. Perhaps it had no direct bearing on Arai's latest affliction, but he had no doubt whatsoever that if he ignored it, all would be lost.

"Did you ever get my letter, about the pear tree? It was just a few weeks ago."  
"The old one. It died, huh?"  
"Yes. I think there's something under it, that I'm supposed to look for. I'm not sure. But maybe it will help us." Gently, he extricated himself from Arai's grasp. "We'll have to go now, though. There isn't much sun left."

That blank staring gaze was every bit as wrenching to see the second time, as Arai blinked up at him. But all Arai knew was that his sight was gone. At least Mori could spare him the fright of knowing he no longer had the same eyes he'd gone to sleep with. With the sleeve of his shirt and shaking fingers, he gently wiped away the last of the damp on Arai's cheeks, before taking his hands.

"First we'll get our shoes, and then I need to get some digging tools, okay?"  
Arai pressed his lips together, confused, but clearly having trouble framing the right questions.   
"I don't know why you can't see. I don't know if we'll find something to help," Mori provided, offering the only comfort he could think of in that moment--the touch of his hands on Arai's face, and shoulders. "If this doesn't work, we'll try something else. I won't...." (let you disappear) "....give up on you. I promise."

Arai seemed to listen with all his being, and briefly, Mori reflected on how much faith it must take, to follow a person you couldn't see, who knew no more than you did. He understood that Arai's mere willingness to listen to him in this moment was evidence of trust, and greater courage than Mori believed he had ever seen, from anyone.

After thinking it through a second or two longer, Arai nodded. "Okay."

**

He made it as far as the front porch, clinging to Mori's arm, before Mori could feel the young man's legs trembling under his own weight. He eased him down to sit on the steps, explaining every move, imagining how paralyzing it must be to walk through a world of total darkness, with only someone else's voice and hands for guidance.

Although apparently, Arai's world was not entirely dark.  
"Oh." His eyes widened, shimmering oddly in the sunset, as he labored to catch his breath. Mori dropped to a crouch next to him, a passing shred of hope making him study those flat glassy eyes more closely.

"What? Do you see something?" It was only now, with some of the shock draining off, that he realized he'd seen eyes like this before. On the kinmedai, and the two water spirits he knew. Though they were a paler color than that spirit down by the estate, lacking the lambent glow of the kinmedai's eyes. And unlike any of those creatures, Arai could blink his lids, which he did then.

"Lights," Arai answered, turning his head to track something Mori couldn't see. "On the ground. Like trails. And strings." He cocked his head, with a faint, tired note of wonder in his voice. "Kinda like a spiderweb. But it's all glowy. You don't see it?"

"I don't," Mori answered, eying the angle of the sun. It wasn't nearly so ominous out here as his dream had led him to expect, but he still had the feeling that they shouldn't tarry. "Can you see anything else?"

Arai turned his head slowly to the right, scanning the clearing, and blinked again at the front rows of the orchard. "What's that? It's really bright."  
"That's where the pear trees are," Mori answered, even as he reached for Arai's boots and tugged the laces loose. "I'm going to put your boots on now, so we can go there."

"Hm." Arai continued staring off at the orchard, hands flat to the porch, to hold himself up. "It's all lit up, over there. It's....pretty."  
The fact that he'd spotted the orchard for himself, told Mori that whatever had replaced his sight, it was most likely not a hallucination brought on by illness. But neither was it natural, or adequate to Arai's needs.

He slipped Arai's boots on his feet and laced them up quickly, before reaching for his own shoes. "If you're not up to walking that far, don't wear yourself out," he cautioned. "I'd rather carry you, than have you use up all your energy."

Arai's forehead creased, and he slumped a little. "I'll slow you down. You could go without me."  
"I'm not leaving you by yourself," Mori answered, speaking as kindly as he could, while still making it clear that the matter was not up for negotiation. He did not wish to explain that it was far easier to carry Arai, than to be consumed with worry the entire time Arai was out of his immediate proximity.

There came a sigh, as Arai faced forward toward the clearing again, shoulders drooping lower. "It's not your fault. Me getting sick, and--" waving a hand vaguely in front of his face. "This. None of it's your fault."

Mori might have begged to differ, for at least a dozen reasons. And maybe someday he would discuss all his prior failings, but not right now. "It isn't yours, either." Before introspection could delay them any further, he reached for Arai's hand on the porch, covering it with his own.

"You think you can walk?"  
Arai's frown deepened, and he bit his lip, before answering with heavy reluctance. "Not very fast."

"Then I'll carry you," Mori said simply.

**

The ground was soggy instead of hard and dry, thanks to the hard rain and Mizuko-chan's precautionary flooding of the orchard, not a week before. And once Mori dug out the mud from the spot under the stump where he'd broken his spade previously, he discovered that the flooding had done him a considerable favor.

Where it was once packed earth and rocks, tangled in with the thick, stubborn tree roots, now it was just decaying roots and loose mud, washed down from the rows. He had little trouble uncovering the object he'd taken for a large dense rock--the thing which had done his spade in. And by now, he was not terribly startled to discover that it was not a rock at all. It was in fact, the lid and corner of a tightly sealed metal box, bound fast by tree roots as thick as his forearm.

First, he tried prying the whole stump up with his shovel. But even bringing all his weight to bear on it didn't give enough leverage. So he led Arai to sit slightly further off, out of range of flying dirt and stray pebbles, and switched to the pickaxe.

He had to aim his strikes carefully, so as not to damage the box, and every few swings, he paused to check the sun, half-sunk behind the trees west of the cottage, and then check on Arai, sitting near one of the trees (though not too close, Mori hoped), knees drawn up to his chin, trying not to doze off. Fearing what might happen the next time Arai went to sleep, Mori kept up a broken one-sided conversation with him. Describing the box he'd found, telling him how it was made like the bins in the root cellar, where he'd first found the food that had saved him, here.

This box, he said, looked exactly like the one he had found for a ghost, at the back of the orchard, where the stream fed the rows. These facts sufficed to keep Arai's attention for several minutes, since Mori had never told him the whole story of how he'd first come to the cottage.

Who was the ghost, he wanted to know, and Mori said she was a noble lady, from a long time ago. Back then, he'd thought she haunted the place because of some items she'd lost. Ghosts sometimes did that. But now, he believed she'd been guarding the place all along, until someone living could take care of it again.

He hacked and split the roots, throwing back chunks of mud and broken wood, wondering what piece of the puzzle he would uncover now. Whether it might help him save Arai, as he fervently hoped, or whether it might only be another clue to the story he'd been piecing together, from dreams and ghosts and old stories.

"Do you think that tree died, because that box was in the roots?" Arai asked.  
"These trees are very old," Mori told him. "They should have been dead twenty years ago. I don't know why this one died, and the others are still giving fruit. But if it hadn't, we would never have known about this box."

"Why would somebody put it under a tree? Wouldn't the tree get hurt, if they dug it back out?"  
Mori took a few more swings with the pickaxe, mulling the question over. "Maybe they wanted to hide it, for a very long time." He paused, armed the sweat off his forehead, as the idea spread out its own roots, in his thoughts.

Yamato had taken a vow, to protect someone's secrets. A vow which was so powerfully binding, he could not break it, even after death. That was the sort of thing one buried under a tree, in the middle of an orchard.

And then, after shoving at the corner of the box with his foot, finding it still firmly stuck in the earth in spite of all his effort so far, a truly startling thought emerged. What if this secret wasn't meant for him to uncover? 

Slowly, with a prickling of intuition, he turned to see Arai, still hugging his knees, blind glazed eyes heavy-lidded now.  
"I don't know if I can get this out. You think you might be able to help me, for just a minute?"

"Me?" Arai sat up straighter, at Mori's approach. "What could I do?"  
"I just want to try something. It might not work. But there's not much daylight left." He bent down, put his hands lightly on Arai's wrists. "I'd like to show you this box, is that okay?"

"Yeah, but--." Arai shrugged, felt his way around Mori's hands to grasp them. "Sure."  
He helped Arai stand, and bore most of his weight, over toward the stump.

"Okay, kneel right here. There's some mud, sorry. I'm going to put your hand on the box." He guided Arai's fingers down to the mud-caked metal, keeping one arm around his back to balance him at the edge of the hole he'd dug out.

"It's cold," Arai noted, sliding both sets of fingers over the edges and exposed corner of the box, and then feeling around the thick root and packed mud obscuring the rest of it. "Oh, yeah, it's really stuck."

"You remember New Years?" Mori asked. "How you pulled that stone up for Mizuko-chan?" The water spirit had chosen him for that task, Mori remembered. Could she have known, back then, that Arai was meant to be here?

"With that rope," Arai nodded gravely. "Yeah."  
"You think you could do that again? We don't have the rope. But what you did, when you asked the stone to come up. Could you try that?"

Under his arm, Arai stiffened and drew his hands back from the box. "You got hurt, that time."  
"That was because of the rope. I shouldn't have put it on, like I did."

"But." Arai sat back, looking painfully uncertain. "What if we're not supposed to take it? What if something bad happens? I don't wanna make anything bad happen to you."

"Please, would you try? I'm not sure I'm meant to take this out. But I think you might be."  
"But it was your tree," Arai argued, turning to Mori in confusion. "What's it got to do with me?"

Mori stilled, thinking hard for a second. He hadn't meant to bring this up until Arai felt better. Until he actually had the strength to hear the whole explanation, and understand fully what Mori was offering him. But they hadn't much choice. It was now, or they wait until morning, and who knew what would happen to Arai by then.

"Actually, I think it was supposed to be your tree. It'll take a long time to explain everything, but I think this place is meant to be yours."  
"Mine? It can't be. I wasn't even around when you moved here."

"We don't know where you were, for certain. And I never owned this place, I was just taking care of it." Mori paused, glancing at the last slice of the sun falling behind the trees, feeling desperate. Yes, they could come back in the morning. Yes, they could trek back to the cottage for lamps. But his instinct told him that this was the time. Maybe his dream of the sunset was arbitrary; maybe his anxiety to complete the task now was just the by-product of his anxiety overall. But he had no more solutions, nothing else to pin his hopes on, but the contents of this box.

"Can you try?" he asked. "Just once. If it doesn't work, I'll keep digging."  
"I still don't get it. But. It's important to you."  
Mori nodded, before remembering Arai couldn't see it. "Yes."  
"What if something bad happens?"  
"Then I'll get you away from here, very fast."

"I meant, what if something bad happens to you?"  
"I don't think anything can, on this property. But that's a long story," he added, at Arai's curious frown.  
"You'll tell me?"

"I'll tell you everything, once we get this out."

Arai sighed. Reached up to his shoulder, where Mori's arm was still draped and felt for his hand. "Okay." He squeezed Mori's fingers, and drew in a breath. "I'll try."

Mori guided his hands back to the box, and Arai felt along the edges, closing his eyes and biting his lip in concentration. All he could reach was the one corner, and he lay one hand on top and felt around with his other hand on the bottom.

"Okay," he repeated quietly to himself, and gave the first weak tug.

It was completely anticlimactic. Arai pulled, and the wet earth gave way; those tough fibrous roots crumbling into the hole Mori had dug. The box came free with a wet sucking noise, practically falling into Arai's lap, as he fumbled about in his surprise.

"That's it?" he asked, muddy fingers feeling out the box's proportions; rectangular, a hand's width deep, and no longer than his forearm. Mori stared into the hole that was left, equally surprised, seeing nothing but dirt and webbed strands of broken root.

"I think that's it."  
"You couldn't dig that out? It was easy."  
"It wasn't mine," Mori told him. "I think it was easy, because it's for you."

Arai tilted his head, considering. "You think I should open it?"  
"There's a latch on the front," Mori moved Arai's hand toward the middle, so he could trace it out. "If you can't get it, I can pry it open."

"It's like the latch on your rice bin, in the cellar."   
Mori remembered having to use a hoe on those latches, the first several times he'd opened them, but Arai's fingers slipped under the catch, and loosened it with a quiet, effortless pop. After that he needed Mori's help, since his muddy hands were too slick to pull the lid off.

And then it was open, and Mori stared at the contents.  
"What is it?" Arai's hands hovered near the opening, not quite willing to touch.  
Mori swallowed. There was a stitched leather ball. A bundle of soft cloth. A carved brass tube, the kind they used to store scrolls in, back in the temple. It was difficult to make out; the last light of the sun was only a purplish glow in the west now. "I'm not sure," he answered. "We should go back inside, wash our hands."

"Oh. Yeah."

**

He left the digging tools in the orchard so he could carry the box, while Arai clung to his back, head bobbing on Mori's shoulder. He toed off his boots on the porch, and carried Arai to the table in the front room.  
"I'll be in the kitchen, just a second," he said, leaving the box with Arai while he hurried to rinse his hands, fetch a basin of water and a towel, and light a few lamps.

"So? Can you see now?" Arai asked, when Mori set the basin and the towel in front of him.

"There's a ball. Hand stitched, it looks like. Red and yellow." He set the ball on the table, to pull out the other item. "And a blanket. Small. Looks like a baby blanket."  
"What color is it?"  
"Dark blue." Mori studied the edges, frowning thoughtfully. "There's white embroidery on it. Pear blossoms."

"Are my hands clean?"  
"Yeah." Mori passed him the towel, and then the ball and blanket, once Arai's hands were dry.

"Is that all?"  
"No, there's a scroll, or something." Mori unscrewed the lid of the brass tube, and shook out the roll of thin parchment inside. "Or....no." He read the heading of the document, skimming down the lines, stopping on a name he recognized. "It's like. A letter."

But the name he'd hoped to find, from the moment he'd seen the brass tube, had been erased. Just like on Fukuo's scroll.

"What's it say?" Arai's fingers stroked the soft blue blanket, and for a terrible moment Mori was actually grateful Arai couldn't see his expression.

"Um. Hang on. It's all in calligraphy," he stalled, as he skimmed quickly down the page. Another name jumped out at him, and without meaning to, he slowed down, reading carefully now.

It was a history. Astounding, and yet so very plausible, in light of all he'd learned already. Of course it raised nearly as many questions as it explained, but knowing this to be the story that so many had hinted at, and at last understanding why it had been hidden--not to mention the account of what else had been hidden--Mori felt at last that the complex puzzle he'd been pursuing had finally fallen into shape.

But it was not a fortunate story, nor an easy thing to read. Before he reached the postscript, Mori was shaken to discover that his eyes were blurred with tears, trailing down his cheeks, and he hastily swiped at them with his shirt sleeve. 

Arai needed to hear this account. God knew he deserved it, after all this time. But Mori wasn't sure he could read this aloud to him, without breaking down.

He looked up to discover Arai had lain his head down on the table, atop his folded arms. Hair fallen into his face again, and those poor blind eyes sagging slowly shut. He had to clear his throat, before he was able to speak.

"I'm sorry. I need to get a drink. I'll tell you what this says, as soon as I'm back."  
"What's it about?" Arai mumbled sleepily.  
"It's about several people. A little bit about this place. And some things that happened a long time ago. I think--." He hesitated because it would sound mad, but surely this was what Yamato had meant, talking about skepticism and impossible things. "I think it's about you, too. I'll be right back."

**

Before he began reading, he pulled the lamp over near Arai, on the table, and came to sit behind him, dragging up one of the blankets he'd laid on the floor that morning. He wrapped the blanket around Arai's shoulders, and pulled him back against his chest.

When Arai made a drowsy, questioning sound, all Mori said was, "Warmer now?"  
"Hm."  
"Do you want to nap, and I can read this later?"  
"No. Wanna hear it."

"Okay," Mori sighed. "It might seem confusing, but I've met some of these people before. Two of them were ghosts, and one was in a dream. The person I dreamed about used to own this place. He was the one who told me to come help you, I think."

"When I was....at that estate?"  
"Yes. And then Mizuko-chan and someone else I met said I should help you, too. You're very important to several people, you know that? I didn't know it before, but there are people who've cared about you, for a long time."

"What do you mean? Like who?"  
"Like the people in this letter. I'll tell you about the other ones, later on. Just listen now, okay?"

"M'kay."


	47. Interlude: The Buried Letter

****

**Being a short history of private events, as recorded by the Head Priest of the Minazuki Shrine, at the Village of Rakuyou**

 

There was a certain Lady, born to the house of ___________, being the noble seat of an illustrious bloodline, granted by the Governor of the Southern Fiefdoms in recognition of a former generation's honorable service.

Little is known about this Lady's early life, save that she lived virtuously, in retirement from the common pursuits of the world, as the very example of filial piety and modest obedience. She was known to the Minazuki Shrine as a patron of the poor and humble, donating goods and charity through the shrine, and as a faithful attendant on days of special observance.

This lady's history became known to the poor priest who now relates this tale, during his years as an acolyte, serving and studying under the revered Father Yamato (may the gods bless his dear soul). Father Yamato, having been himself a young priest during the years of the Lady ___________ 's patronage of our shrine, asked that I keep the history as he knew it, for the purpose of edifying a future generation.

To the person who now holds this account, it is my earnest hope that these pages will serve the purpose for which Father Yamato, and I myself, have kept this story all these long years.

**

It is known that the Lord of the house of ___________, father to the Lady whom these events concern, had long sought a suitor for his daughter, seeing as she was the sole offspring of that house. The Lord ___________'s wife passed on in childbirth, and for reasons known only to himself, the Lord did not remarry.

For this reason, it is widely thought that he intended to adopt a successor to the family name and lands, exchanging the hand of his beloved only child. However let it be known, that as neither the author of this text or the Father Yamato ever spoke to the Lord ___________ regarding these matters, the veracity of our conclusions may be doubtful.

What is certain is that a suitor was found, but the marriage did not, to anyone's sure knowledge, take place. Following the announcement of the suitor's name (the Lord Ite, a man of obscure lineage from the western provinces), and his adoption by Lord ___________, the Lord ___________ fell grievously ill and passed on quite suddenly.

It is further known that the Lady retired into mourning, disappearing altogether from public knowledge, and fleeing the house of her father. The former Lord Ite, now called ___________ by virtue of his adoption, at this time assumed the management of the lands and house. 

As is now common knowledge, the new master's efforts did not prosper. The land which once flourished fell prey to a string of misfortunes; drought, diverse pestilences, and the resignation of the property's tenant farmers, as well as the servants of the house.

Some months after her retirement, the Lady ___________ paid a secret visit to the Minazuki shrine, unaccompanied and unannounced to anyone but Father Yamato. It is believed she was not altogether in her right mind at the time, confessing a peculiar series of events involving inhabitants of the second world, and a curse being placed on the Lord Ite, as retribution for that person's involvement in the former Lord ___________'s death.

The details of the curse are not known, and the particulars of the Lady's involvement with resident spirits of the region are vague, at best. Father Yamato did state that the Lady was with child at that time, and had no other means of aid, or relatives to depend upon.

It was Father Yamato's great compassion, and his memory of the Lady's many gifts to the temple and village, which led him to offer shelter to the Lady, and a promise to adopt her fatherless child into the temple. However, the Lady refused the arrangement. She stated a conviction that her child's life would be imperiled (perhaps by the retribution of the former Lord Ite, although this is mere speculation), if it remained in the village. What she asked of Father Yamato instead, was introduction to some remote household, far from the province of Rakuyou village, where she might go into service, and raise her child.

As previously mentioned, Father Yamato was not convinced the Lady ___________ was in full possession of a sound mind, during that time. As such, he was reluctant to send her so far from home, or to see her fall prey to further misfortune among strangers. For this reason, he introduced her to the household of Hisakawa, an aged gentleman farmer who tended a modestly sized, although prosperous parcel of land in the lee of the western hills.

Following the proper introductions, the Lady joined the household of Hisakawa, where she remained in seclusion for the next three years. During this period, reports of her were rare, but Father Yamato did receive a few letters through Hisakawa, and baskets of hand-made gifts to the temple. He believed that the Lady and her child were well, and recalled to this author that he was happy to see the Lady continuing in her charitable work, insofar as she was able.

Although sadly, he never saw or spoke with her again.

During the Lady's time at the home of Hisakawa, the ___________ estate continued its decline. Ill rumors circulated regarding the new Lord; tales concerning gambling debts, defaults to money lenders, and association with persons of dubious character. It was also learned that the Lord had sought the whereabouts of the Lady, and her child, going so far as to commission a party to speak with Father Yamato.

This agent--whose name Father Yamato did not recall, suggested that Lord ___________ sought the Lady's whereabouts out of concern for the succession of her late father's estate lands. He further intimated that the Lord was prepared to offer sums of money for knowledge of the Lady or any of her offspring. 

Father Yamato later confessed to this humble scribe, that the matter of the monetary offer concerned him, as Lord ___________ was widely known to be destitute. He was further concerned over reports of the Lord's habits and character, and it was these factors which led him to conceal what he knew of the Lady. At that time, he became convinced that at least part of the Lady's fears had been well-justified.

Following the visit by Lord ___________'s agent, Father Yamato sought an interview with the farmer Hisakawa. It was his intention to warn that man against Lord ___________, and encourage him to take precautions for his safety, as well as that of the Lady and her child.

It was this interview with Hisakawa, which later prompted Father Yamato to take down the history of the Lady, and the events surrounding her later life, in as much detail as he recalled, and to pass them on to the next generation.

It must be noted here that Hisakawa, while universally agreed to be a man of steady and trustworthy character, was also believed by some to have had regular acquaintance with the world of spirits. It was said in those days, that he communed with them as one might commune with one's own neighbors. 

It should also be understood that Father Yamato, while he bore an implicit and unshakable faith in the teachings of our sect, and unreservedly devoted every aspect of his life to the shrine, was not a man prone to believing superstitious tales, or to using the spirits for an excuse in cases where sound human judgment would suffice. He taught all his followers by these same precepts, including the humble priest who now relates this tale. 

I would beg the reader to please keep these facts in mind, as this record draws to its close.

Father Yamato related that upon warning Hisakawa of Lord ___________'s intentions, the farmer stated that there was a safeguard for this eventuality. The solution, as he put it, was to place the child in the care of its natural father. Although, he did clearly wish to point out, that this arrangement would not come without a price.

When asked if Hisakawa knew the identity of the child's father, the man replied to Father Yamato, "Most everyone knows him. But outside of the stories we learn as children, very few have met him."

Believing the farmer was speaking of a famous personage, perhaps a member of high nobility, Father Yamato pressed for a name. He said that he himself would write a letter begging the man's indulgence on the Lady's behalf, if that were permissible.

To which Hisakawa answered, "I expect Kitsune takes names as they suit him. But I'm afraid to say, he does not take letters at all."

**

Please allow this scribe to state his preference for all reasonable skepticism concerning the agents who may or may not have played a part in this history.

Neither Father Yamato nor myself ever obtained concrete evidence regarding the origin or fate of Lady ___________'s child. A son, as Father Yamato was told. The facts we may present with confidence, are as follows:

 **~*~** For the following six years, the adopted Lord ___________ did publicly pursue further knowledge of the Lady, with respect to any children she may have borne, until the time of his death in a drowning accident on the Rakuyou river, near the estate.

 **~*~** Two years after the interview earlier described, the farmer Hisakawa contacted Father Yamato to arrange a funeral blessing for the Lady ___________. She had recently passed on due to illness, as was confirmed by the village doctor. It was her stated wish that her mortal remains be cremated, and the ashes dispensed on Hisakawa's property. Father Yamato came and performed the blessing as requested. 

During his visit, Father Yamato asked after the welfare of the Lady's child. To which the farmer replied that the boy was in safe hands, and would be cared for until he reached his majority. He claimed to have no further detail than that, but did request that Father Yamato consider making a record of the Lady's life, and the good she had done, and the conspiracy of misfortune which led to the loss of her home, and her son.

These are a record of the farmer Hisakawa's words at that time:

_"There was never a woman who loved her child so dearly. Maybe grief led her to go astray in having him, but she took joy in every day he was here. And the bargain she made to keep him safe from that cursed house and its unrighteous master, was a harder deal than most mortals would bear._

_"It may be a long, long time before that child comes home again. But someday he will, and I reckon he'll want to know what sort of person brought him into this world. She was a rare, pure soul. I never heard an unkind, or impatient word out of her. Bless her, if she had lived, I would've given her and that boy my house and land to call home. If you find him, when he comes back, I'd be obliged if you passed that on. Tell him I mean for him to have this place, if he's found no other home by them. I think you'll know him, when you meet him. He'll be a rare one, just like the Lady."_

 

 **~*~** As of the passing of Father Yamato, Lady ___________'s son had not returned, and no word was ever heard of him. But as promised, the good Father related this account to his successor. And this humble person has taken up the promise made to the farmer Hisakawa.

 **~*~** Ten years after the Lady's passing, the farmer Hisakawa too passed on. It is said his remains were found shrouded, on a raft hung with lanterns floating down the river Rakuyou.

 

**Post Script.**

 

It is now thirty years since Father Yamato went to his reward after this life. And as his successor, now the custodian of this history, is seeing his own time in the world drawing to a close, I have made the decision to place this history in the hands of fate.

I choose to trust the words of the farmer Hisakawa, who once assured me that nothing left in the care of his land would come to ruin. Seeing how long his house and lands have stayed intact without him, I believe that--whatever measures he took to secure this place for the next tenant--he must surely be right.

Those in the village believe I have come to perform an exorcism, as the decades have wound strange and superstitious tales around this property. But the spirit of the Lady ___________ (whom in spite of my skepticism I am convinced I have seen lingering here), believes she carries out a debt of honor in this place, and does not wish to relinquish it.

So until the next tenant of this land arrives, I believe that she, and her history, will patiently wait.

 

 **~*~*~*~**


End file.
